For Georgia O’Keefe
April 10, 1988

They are the south and intoxicated red,
so they know how long it takes
for him to get the milk from her,
to suck unripe capsules from her concave brittle star
— dreaming agreeably before he sleeps or dies.
More than time, he needs to care—
even slight exposure to the air will change
her snowy sticky liquid to a dark and concrete seed.