SAM REED

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Wild White Roses by a Creekbed in June

Motionless, they seem to wheel
And glow, upstream there, like bad stars,
Scrapped and floating in a pile,
Too hot to touch. But no, they aren’t
Quite still—their falling, gathering,
And lifting back so slowly, bent
So shallowly, could be the path
Of hour-old or coming wind.
The highest are face-high, film-thin
And flat, with the petals splayed, not cupped.
They’re just a little colder than
The air. They feel too smooth to touch.
It’s June and, otherwise, it’s drought.
What snow the creek did get, the roots
Must have gripped, to grow such white
From earth cracking beneath the spruce,
Quartz-white, where now a spider lightly
Adjusts its perch, biting the collar
Of a small, barely twitching bee
Whose face is smothered in pollen.

___________
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