What the Dust Doesn’t Know - Richard Schiffman

[Larry Robinson]

What the Dust Doesn’t Know

Even this runt, dust-hugging 
cactus with nothing to commend
its spiked flesh has a lover

once a year when
the red tent of a calyx,
bursting from its crown of thorns,

is ravished by a bee-like creature, 
which wallows in that bristling 
pollen cup, then staggers into air

bearing a scrim of dust,
dusting all its other crimson lovers
on the slope, which swell

with purpled fruit, also thorned--
like Jesus on his tree, waiting 
for the two Marys to steal past
 
the dozing Roman guards at midnight 
and pluck the tender fruit of his body 
from its bed of nails 

and consume it, 
then pass 
the nearly invisible seeds, 

which shall rise again
from their fecal tombs. As Life-- 
barbed and pug ugly 

nailed to its crucifix of matter. 
But, don’t forget, the nails 
are there to nail down 

something precious, 
however fleetingly 
it flowers, it fruits--

something 
the dust does not 
know, this is what 

the lover knows.

	- Richard Schiffman