Osmanthus Of Desp'air Poem by Birgit Bunzel Linder

You say with some defiant flair
There is no such thing as an
Osmanthus of Despair. But I see
It growing out of your
unpruned hair. It trollopes and it
thackerays and it is not rare. Boundaries
are serrated, and, please admit and be
fair, panicles grow all over your lair.
Two purple drupes mature under the eyes
that seek to dare. Four-lobed tubes sound
a corolla of snare. I wonder if you
could admit to yourself right there
that Osmanthus of Despair are more common—
and on my mother's grave I swear—than
the things that rhyme with ‘common pear.'