Setting

A lilac can hold on, half-dead, for days
if it is not cut at dusk, when the dogs are wild
with its breath—
                          still in the water, parted,

but a transit station is not a vase, despite the insistence
on light, despite the drainage gate or the tearing
of a pleated skirt,
                          the perimeter wrapped

in ribbon, despite the spray cans, the cheap fever,
the dogs huffing, silver-plated, no matter how much
I desire it shaped
                          in glass.

Copyright © 2006 Beth Bachmann All rights reserved
from Black Warrior Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission