1.
however high and in what order
blooms reach each night, stems
sink into their water til by morning
one of these thousand-petaled
heads has bowed in comma
despite vegetal thirst, phototrope
and for some silent will these colors
or these crests have a little of your
light. how does ranunculus remember:
slow-motion so pink tail’s bright
as hallelujah. knows grace wider
than final and violent as a curtsey.
2.
waking seeing windows through
fog, uncertain temperature. as above,
below: the spring’s funeral games.
atmosphere or breath or fuschia
shock of flowers vased and tabled
on the day birdsound came back
in season, was mute all winter long
nickel faucet whistle to what’s
bottom-dwelt, green sweeps
into the sink. between uneasiness
and consciousness, thinking the gray
unknowing is conspiratorial sky.
3.
blossom-haired brush brow where
my ear pins stem inches cut from
swirl of knotted buds and browning
leaves. changeless water gone days
and so exalted buttercup falls and falls
again each walking wind percuss
my forehead and remind. action.
preservation. what quote comes
cloudy as tattoo tonight, a whole
day crowned with flowers. axes quip
what bound you or released you
what rules where we remain.
4.
what more sense my mind makes
believing in the stars. reading a
horoscope, drawing cards each
morning, what to know before
the day. what warning i could recognize
the way a table’s laid. i think some planet’s
up there raying powers down, charting you
in orbits, faith, whatever owes belief.
how it reads as story—what divining
takes a long count on the moon circling
down the lake—some memories unmade
or some made up, some old mistake. wish-tell
or fortune lines across my hands: “call her soon,”
a prayer, a mystic , ghost or crystal comfort—
instead softened words said on the phone,
the drawn-out desert drawl of unknown aunt
through bad reception, three hours difference
says you look handsome, that she has missed
you. asks memories—had you two talked? when
if—thank god, thank god, some soundless sobs—
a pause or polite shock or worse—says murdered
says she is, she is… words, says words.
5.
cleaning rooms—dessicated, dead tillandsia
watch over. hold me where i hang frames
on nearing anniversary. what stops me
daily, final vanity. do this in remembrance
the action or the image—
one or the other is sacred. so there is
an after, before, and in-between: time
is sacrifice—how it bleats and bleeds. what
altar do you pray to stay—and then which to leave?