After the Tulip Sale at the North Carolina Arboretum

Soon they’ll be undressed,
petal-shriveled, disappearing—
as light or smoke, shaped
and potted as they were
to dollar decimals, sold.
We’ll forget how—flashing
pictures—we tried to join them
as if we were the same—
our bulbed heads rising
like snakes from a slumber,
how we too were top-heavy,
falling apart, as laughter
dangled out our throats,
how we sent them to our
mothers, fathers as gestures
of devotion—we yearned
to give back our origins
to our origins with this flung
constellation of fluorescence,
how we never knew if
such spectacular whispers
would come back.

*

Arabesque Orb Weaver

October comes like a call to arms.
And they crawl out of the woods—
what you most wanted to forget.
They lace a lucent architecture
on every right angle available,
and their dreamcatchers wake
in windows. Invisible parachutes
arrive at dawn around the knot,
ornamental and fine-furred, endless
weaver and spool of silver thread.

Suddenly, I’ve walked through
the strung fabric—tangled up
in the elastic and winding rope.
I brush it off, but it’s never gone.
Memory’s like that—you can be
rapt in its quivering strands—
what you tried to erase then escape.
And this webbed edifice has you,
dazzles you, envelops every move,
spins your limbs with light, reminds
again—how fugitive is human skin.

*

Jesse Breite’s recent poetry has appeared in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, River Heron Review, Tar River Poetry, and Rhino. His first full-length poetry collection is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. Jesse teaches high school in Atlanta, Georgia, where he lives with his wife and two kids. More at jessebreite.com.