ecargo6 Oct 2003

They're such oddly malevolent flowers--this works quite well. I like "twist a whimsied spiral," but "down and around" is redundant, and I am unreasonably biased against the word "abound"--it just strikes me as one of those "committing acts of poetry" words. The "watch we" inversion strikes a little artificially--does it have some purpose other than the rhyme? I'm usually turned off by archaic tones in modern poems, but the orchid has an odd, other-timely formality that makes it work here (it helps that you keep it light and reasonably subtle). Light and shadow, whimsy and floral murder--what's not to like?