Pollys Tree

 A dream tree, Polly's tree:
 a thicket of sticks,
 each speckled twig

ending in a thin-paned
 leaf unlike any
 other on it

or in a ghost flower
 flat as paper and
 of a color

vaporish as frost-breath,
 more finical than
 any silk fan

the Chinese ladies use
 to stir robin's egg
 air.
 The silver-

haired seed of the milkweed
 comes to roost there, frail
 as the halo

rayed round a candle flame,
 a will-o'-the-wisp
 nimbus, or puff

of cloud-stuff, tipping her
 queer candelabrum.

 Palely lit by

snuff-ruffed dandelions,
 white daisy wheels and
 a tiger faced

pansy, it glows.
 O it's
 no family tree,
 Polly's tree, nor

a tree of heaven, though
 it marry quartz-flake,
 feather and rose.


It sprang from her pillow
 whole as a cobweb
 ribbed like a hand,

a dream tree.
 Polly's tree
 wears a valentine
 arc of tear-pearled

bleeding hearts on its sleeve
 and, crowning it, one
 blue larkspur star.

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