Poem

Green is the false nettle
and green is its bloom
and few are the tenders
you pull from your room,

fewest are the cinders
that fall from your fire,
the many times I wait at
the sparking of desire,

and full yearned, unsated
you adopt a green regret,
unfaithed a slopping kettle
you in my love, beset.

From Smokes (Four Way Books, 1998). Copyright © 1998 by Susan Wheeler. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.