Tuesday Poem: an earlier version published by Poetpourri in 1994

One Summer I Read 

A Biography of Emily Bronte

And suddenly I noticed

the ornamental cabbages

penned up too close

to the houses, their ferocious

color, their variegated heads

crenellating gorgeously

despite their captivity.

The fences around them are

just a little too high,

so that they have to

stretch on precarious stems

to be seen, or to see out.

Their leaves show such largesse,

reaching out to one another,
trying to hold hands across the mulchy
darkness, as if it threatened to

swallow them whole.

And they take the frost,

like troopers, holding firm to

that ethereal companionship

as long as they can, 

despite the worms

living inside them,

the slow hollowing
that leaves them feeling
like shells caught in their longing

for the ocean, a whisper

that echoes a roar.