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.