Bitter Nightshade

Solanum dulcamara

Dark redundant berries, flowers white, stop

clinging to my house, coiling the phone line

electric with her lips' whisper, the muffled pop

of "p" in relapse, my slow repeating

it back, "relapse, I'm so sorry, Polly,

Polly, I'm so sorry this has happened

again." Relapse from lapsus, slip, folly,

fall, fail, as in how the tongue, again, won't bend

to speak it right. Nightshade, you set yourself

between the clapboards and bloom until

we yank you out, but every year a relapse.

It's all about again, now spinal taps

a second time, more poison to kill

poison, this circle of stealth, guile, stealth.