The belladonna bloom in August light
upon their rhubarb tubes. They focus out
like gramophones, their silent song a shout
of heated pink, their beauty overbright.
The crinum stretch in shade to freakish height.
Among their ramps of foliage, they sprout
on hollow cylinders to look about
at lower plants from pinnacles of white.

The naked ladies celebrate the heat
and lean immobile into hungry death.
The lofty clumps of cloud-toned umbels nod
within the wafting wind, while at their feet,
among their blades, the sorrel spends its breath,
and every seed is dreaming in its pod.