Polly's Tree

A dream tree, Polly's tree:

a thicket of sticks,

each speckled twig

ending in a thin-paned

leaf unlike any

other on it

or in a ghost flower

flat as paper and

of a color

vaporish as frost-breath,

more finical than

any silk fan

the Chinese ladies use

to stir robin's egg

air. The silver -

haired seed of the milkweed

comes to roost there, frail

as the halo

rayed round a candle flame,

a will-o'-the-wisp

nimbus, or puff

of cloud-stuff, tipping her

queer candelabrum.

Palely lit by

snuff-ruffed dandelions,

white daisy wheels and

a tiger faced

pansy, it glows. O it's

no family tree,

Polly's tree, nor

a tree of heaven, though

it marry quartz-flake,

feather and rose.

It sprang from her pillow

whole as a cobweb

ribbed like a hand,

a dream tree. Polly's tree

wears a valentine

arc of tear-pearled

bleeding hearts on its sleeve

and, crowning it, one

blue larkspur star.