Dahlia

The fat blossom sits in all her

burgundy on a fluted crystal throne,

chewed mistress of the backyard,

miscellaneous gaps in her gown,

now exiled to the old oak table.

On the rim of one curled petal

thrust up like coned paper

in a cluster of cornucopias,

a quarter-inch inchworm sways

on his foot sensing the air has

changed. His hunch: the vengeful

breath wafting around him 

streams from the fleet-fingered

god of origami whose immaculate

art he’d been lunching on.