Kate Colby
THREE POEMS
NATURAL HISTORY
Summer seems
longer than
a field yields
saw-toothed
chicory-cut
color. Vetch.
Define your time
in flower hours:
thick weeds
breed these
mouths to feed
their contents—
words are birds
surviving dinosaurs.
FIG. 1
The world is only
as you see it—
my candle burns
at the middle.
Stars pour from
earthen amphora,
an empty jar
to contain the dark.
As ice begins
and ends the same,
what I wouldn’t give
to be buried with
my grave.
SETTLEMENT
From denticulate doorways
we walked through
insistent green, inches
pressed between us.
Half for each,
our distance is
a part of speech, un-
like any simile—
in evening,
under eaves, not
reaching toward, but
back into, like sleep,
our eyes, holes,
tunneling together.