GRAVITAS CAPITALEGrgoire Balleydier sharpened a tuberose that never blooms. The flower keeps its mouth shut. Italian cdrat and Buddha's Hand cut cold and high the way winter air does on the first morning it turns, and you take it in before you can name it. Jamaican allspice and shishito green chili climb a vegetal current and sting sharp. Indian tuberose and frankincense rise through the heart, cut to the line by green cardamom from Guatemala. Then the floor drops to

no tobacco

One iris doubled into two that will not agree

What you wear is a flower with the singing scraped off it

Brazilian pink pepper bites cold in the first breath

amber feeds on the ambient warmth

The base holds

By the eighth hour the two irises have fused into one accord

all discipline held over heat that wants to spill

the brine that stings a lip an hour after a swim

dense and slow

Wear it on a station platform where the light goes flat and northern

the air gone tensile