Fritillary

I half believe all wines exist at once
within this glass, I almost half believe
each can be tasted singly, while the whole
is savoured. But the thought is delicate
and open to dispute: Falerian
mixed in with new Bordeaux? I half assume

that in this garden, everything contends
in flowering, with every other bloom:
fritillary and nightshade in one space
at once with Lenten rose and cosmos, sown
with careless imprecision through the beds
as if the gardener had a plan, and these

all intersect together, politics,
this garden, words and sex, remembering
that lyric narrative's sequential, eyes
follow this page, our lips make lines, and yet
sound's meaning, and the known is what we feel
while all our complex memories converge.