The Space Triffids

The long lens of Hubble a spyglass peering

back and back to the dawn of time,

caught in the refraction of a billion galaxies 

the nebula that glitter between the stars

like briny sea mists on the ebb and flow of cosmic tides;

one canvass in particular swimming into focus 

as the eyepiece zeroes in – 

the three-lobed interstellar bloom,

a slight tweak of the name enough to bring to mind

Wyndham’s ambulant plant with its taste for human flesh,

with its carnivorous appetites;

in what gardens of the mind

in what hot house of the imagination 

do they still roam unchecked?