Ironweed

There is something in you of an iron-sided steamship
an architecture of unpliable stems, toothed
leaves, a crow’s nest of disk flowers

a pile of deep violet slippers
uplifted on junkyard stilts

stiff-kneed, towering overhead
as though dredged from some scrap iron sea bed

and winched roots-first into place
overrunning meadows and pastures

obdurate perennials, late-summer bloomers
witnesses to nightlong astonishment
as the Perseids brilliantine their long hair and flare

and the stars stutter, waking from a long dream
of falling