Excerpt from

The Shadow Plant

The plant etched on the wall sits in its pot
as calm as anything--
as any thing not

human. The cars sough by, less frequent than at day.
If I switched off the light
again, I'd see again how they

trace ghostlike, restless lights across the walls,
emblems of human hunger.
The old wood mantle-clock calls

someone, me, to task--more briskly than a heart.
The shadow clearly forms a parrot, perched
on the edge of the pot,

its head turned to the right--above it, on one side,
a stem with paired leaves stretching out like arms,
and on the other side

a single leaf shaped like a heart. . . .

"The Shadow Plant" first appeared in the Paris Review