short pasture
A daisy is innocent until it learns to wilt.
Children pick them with chubby,
grass-stained fingers,
pluck them bald for the sake of love or something like it.
“He loves me… he loves me not…”
A game of guessing the heart,
while the flower quietly dies in your hand.
You sent me a peony once.
Blush-pink and trembling with the weight of meanings I didn’t understand.
bashfulness,
hidden affection,
fragile hope pressed between perfumed folds.
It rotted in a jar on my windowsill before I knew how to say,
“I feel the same.”
Violets are modesty, they say.
But I’ve only ever seen them bruised on the ground,
tender as a secret kept too long.
And lilacs? First love.
So why did they smell like your goodbye?
I keep a notebook now.
Cataloging blooms like sins.
A sprig of lavender for the sleep I never get,
baby’s breath for the apologies too soft to matter,
and forget-me-nots…
well, I remember.
God, I remember.
Sometimes I think flowers know too much.
Rooted in soil but always reaching for light,
aching toward something that won’t stay.
Their beauty is in the dying.
Their language,
in the silence between petals.
So give me a marigold for grief.
A chrysanthemum for truth.
And nothing at all..
if you cannot speak in flowers.
fiery sable
dusk hull
sweet slate
fervent shell
pastel jetty