Not many things are needful:
peaches, silent, in blue stoneware;
sunbeams, silent, on the sisal rug;
roses, leaning, sipping from their vase.
One thing left strewn from late last year
would clutter all. So much is poised on where
the roses sit; maybe on the bar,
maybe on the hutch. So much is poised on what
I name their red: venous, like October’s moon,
or berried, like the rising spring.

For when the red is named or when the petals
shift we turn headlong toward tomorrow
when a poem, even, starts brand new.