of beat-rug orange,
attention-deficit red,
and afterimage yellow—
cordial, but ragged
as the coming autumn clouds;
they do not offend
with their brand
of hocus pocus,
nor beg for our attention
like high summer's
neon dandies—
because, although
too impregnable
to be moved by the wind,
they know,
deep in the closed-fisted
swirl of each corolla,
that it's too late
in the year now
to hope for a perfect body
and was always
just plain foolish
to wish for an unblemished soul.
