Ghost Orchid
        for Robert McKnight, after his sculptures

Haunted by the promise of flowers, light pursues
light, laps like water stolen to the salted
shore, pretends by sure bends the crafted
journey. It brings this brood of forms and hues

to us in twists that fiction the straight line
as the icon of truth. Veracity is of a different
mind—mantled, fluted, bone translucent
and smoke sprung from veined roots that vine

unleaved upon a trunk. It hovers seeming
in what fractions time allows to argue
the impossible beauty. The mute bewildered true
will not be ruler tamed nor taunt the reaping

of causalities. It will appear, vessel
glow, in rebel stillness, forbidden to settle.

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Copyright © 2019 Ricardo Pau-Llosa All rights reserved
from The Turning
Carnegie Mellon University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission