Its sister phylum, Birkenau,
a womb of ruddy ovules and hardened tubes
wither against leaf and spills out
onto the dark sepal of Salonika.
A calyx of chambers and empty whorls
paint Krema's stained corolla
with ash and cinder and coke.

For illusion as rule
is the knowing or not knowing,
a scaffold from skeleton, a stamen from limb,
the _pas seul_ of a breeze, or its solitude
shakes the bud from its stem that falls
to the hard gravel or to the living earth.