Crumpled Petals in my Pocket

April 23

CRUMPLED PETALS IN MY POCKET

I can’t bring back the bloom. Cohesion, lost in ripeness, is left only to memory. I carry home the parts, folded, petite, fragrant bedding for my wistful desires. I put these colored remnants into a jar of salt. I make an aromatic rub for the sweetest of wounds. Transforming the parts to useful duty doesn’t restore the flower. It doesn’t pay tribute to the past; it is survival. I have a mind filled with roses but I must make hay. Today, I live. Today, the rose is dead, its pieces in my pocket. I don’t die with the blossom, though my head blows in the wind. The rose runs its course. I run mine.

Line your clouds with anything you like.

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Coming Home to Work

I have arrived home to a beehive;

everyone industrious,

everyone filled with purpose,

everything buzzing right along.

My response to this of course is anger.

I have a sting and I want to use it.

I have a place it falls into yet I fear falling.

The living world is now opened to me,

but my destination had been death for so long

that the prospect of diligence ignites steel blue fury.

I divide my time between gratitude and rage.

I want to accuse myself, rescue myself,

then I remember everyone in this place too

has a buzz, a stripe and a stinger.