As in late-autumn days, when frozen nights
converse with blooming noons, and frost ignites
the final flowers of squash and bean and death
vermeils each leaf, so this America
flings out its life just like my poor uncaged
tomato plant that in July grew wildly,
then, unsupported, sagged into a mass
of runners, twining around anything,
even itself, and strangling everything—
even itself—while underneath the wreck,
the small tomatoes rot, and never ripen.
There must have been some flower of Eden
that wound itself by nature round itself
and was its own support, and dropped its seeds
from its own freshness, not from its decay—
if so, it’s vanished long ago, while we
now deep into our world’s November gasp
into the welter of self-made collapse
our little clots of pale, incredulous fruits.