This Is Not a Poem in Which

The next text steals the best

Phrases found in the last,

Delicate white-parched bones,

Or sere grasses hissing,

Closet of beautiful

Clothes of the dead, a sleek

Green stalk, a transparent

Lung, a single hair’s curl—

No, give that last one back.

Now, what to do with this bouquet

Plucked from its container?

Forty-odd years ago,

A dandelion head

Hovered over a stalk

Of a human framework

In some Ivy League halls.

One day, gossip had it,

Press had camped out all night

Outside the residence

Of the dandelion

In anticipation of

A rumored impending

Nobel Prize announcement

That never came, that still

Hasn’t come. The slender

Stalk still holds up the head

Of sparse dandelion,

Who never stopped writing.

They’re her phrases. At least

Give her back the bouquet.