Waiting for the 495

by Juliet Antill

Leaning my head out of this world
for a moment,
following the iridescence of an insect

I find fifty tethered suns
in a ragwort-hogweed-vetch
back-of-the-bus-shelter cosmos.

I find meadowsweet –
the bees, the hoverflies, the darting bugs
all loved up and drowning –

I find meadowsweet, her voice something like
Miss Dietrich’s, thick with sex.
I can’t help it, she says,
and pops another pinhead bud into flower.