Not a perfect specimen,
four inches long and half
as wide, flattened on one side
by its long fall to dark days
locked in driveway ice,

the pinecone, now dried and dun,
pocks my hand with hundreds
of blunt points, triangles
that whorl around its axis,
no two pressing the same spot.

It smells of dry loam and smoke—
a male perhaps, with used-up
pollen sacks, now light and papery
with parts curled back, stuck
down with hard grey sap.

The woody spiral shades from dusty
to dark brown when upended,
its scales form a nap that sends back
light along the tips or holds it
in the dark core of attachment.


© by Patrice Boyer Claeys
Used with the author's permission.