Pricksongwort
for Robert Morgan
Such mica pods looking
like a handful of
lunar halfnotes looking back at us
beholders,
given as tho’ a bestowal
from scattering gods, define one plant
bearing
the usual dozen names, one thereof a summa
with animal elements, and vegetable,
and musico-
mathematical,
coefficients melodic enough to rate
the name money plant,
as noble a denomination
as mint and
Mint Museum (that
in Charlotte where they made coins
from ore mined in Cabarrus
County, first
found in 1799). Songbirds on parallel
wires can look
like song, as these
alien toenails
could be taken for sails on isinglass lakes
or scales or scales of scales.