I’ve written
so many
poems
for you
and painted
pictures too
blue and
red and
gold on
paper made
of skin
I am
ashamed
of how
I’ve loved
a lantern
floating
in the sky
could not
have burned
as bright
I will
not stop
until
I reach
the sun
and all
my art
consumed
in flame
gives fiery
birth to your
sweet name
Love
ducked
around
the corner
when it saw
her coming
until she
found it
here–
hiding
in a field
full of
wildflowers.
She knows
their names
better than
she knows
her own–
coneflower,
lady-slipper,
brown-eyed susan.
They grab
at straws
to keep
alive. Their
days are
bright and
flat and
they roll
them on
their edges.
Deep in
the tall
grasses,
she can
hear them
sing–
a simple
song that
settles on
the wind.
I wonder why
for some of us
life is like a long
season of waiting.
Does the cone flower
know the brevity
of its dance;
its one brown
eye blasted daily
by the sun–
can it see
anything
but the sky?
I’m a flower too
and my season
has been long.
For me, there
is no fall
in this place
just an endless
summer of grief.
I am unnatural,
a seed lifted
by the breeze
and carried here–
distant from the prairie,
distant from the tall grass,
distant from the meadow lark,
and distant from that softer
season when the earth
puts on its gray hat
and takes its flowers home.
she dresses
you in red
and takes
you to her bed
you think that I don’t know
but flowers
grow beside
my heart
and tell me
all their secrets
the small hotel
the river Seine
the Paris sky
pain is all I know these days
you lied
I was myself
until you came
and sat beside me
on a garden bench
and asked my name
I couldn’t turn away
two years have passed
since that bright day
the moon has danced
across so many skies
all painted blue and
I grow old and cannot
die for love of you
rlmcdermott 