Wood Dock
He always says it looks like rust
and it does.
Ruffled rust, ruched rust,
rust when it's the dust
on truffles of chocolate -
the ruffles of rust-rich-dyed
petticoats.
And the vermillion red
of the half-hidden stem
is a scandalous stocking
bared.
Wood Dock is
a scruffy little hussy
dancing
at the cross of the road.
*
I'm not sure if the plant I wrote this about actually is Wood Dock. It's some kind of dock, and it has beautiful bright red stems and clumps of rich brown flowery-seedy type things (to use the technical term). The plants I've seen are fuller than any of the straggly specimens I can find online. Anyhoo, it will remain a mystery until I can find a book dedicated solely to Docks. Which will hopefully be a long long time.
