It Was Our First Great Sorrow

And the flowers bloomed a violence. Sunflowers
burned their heads off. Blue azaleas lit the match. What could be
torn was torn:

sepals, filaments & anthers split open,
entrails hanging; every pistil ground down to the cellular level.

Oh, what work it was,
what work it took.

From the windows of the labor ward,
didn’t we see the magnolia trees shred their own petals, turning loss into
small, delectable bites?

Forget-me-nots, those skinny-stem bitches,
wandered around with an unconquerable thirst while purple
mallows shivered for more.

Oh, what work it was,
what work it took.

My father told me, when I was born there was a light that was unreadable like the smallest book in the world

That day, the daisies sharpened their knives.
The poppies, seasonal, bloodied their toes, trying to kick down
the perennial vines, the wisterias & honeysuckles & dark ivies,

but they couldn’t stop the branching, the incessant
multiplying & dividing, any more
than they could stop grief from splintering out of love.

What work it was
to say her name.
What work it took
to unhold her.