A dream tree, Polly's tree:
a thicket of sticks,
  each speckled twig

ending in a thin-paned
leaf unlike any
  other on it

or in a ghost flower
flat as paper and
  of a color

vaporish as frost-breath,
more finical than
  any silk fan

the Chinese ladies use
to stir robin's egg
  air. The silver-

haired seed of the milkweed
comes to roost there, frail
  as the halo

rayed round a candle flame,
a will-o'-the-wisp
  nimbus, or puff

of cloud-stuff, tipping her
queer candelabrum.
  Palely lit by

*****-ruffed dandelions,
white daisy wheels and
  a tiger faced

*****, it glows. O it's
no family tree,
  Polly's tree, nor

a tree of heaven, though
it marry quartz-flake,
  feather and rose.

It sprang from her pillow
whole as a cobweb
  ribbed like a hand,

a dream tree. Polly's tree
wears a valentine
  arc of tear-pearled

bleeding hearts on its sleeve
and, crowning it, one
  blue larkspur star.