I did not pick the wood lily, slender as the minnow in the stream, when I found it amongst the goldenrod.

The wood lily grows alone, so I found it kinder to pluck a flower from the many clustered asters, which the bumble bees will not miss.

It takes a certain kind of cruelty to pick a wood lily, or maybe just a faux-leather seat in a mud-stained bulldozer.

Ripped by metal into the earth, I wish I had picked the wood lily after all.

Then maybe it would have brought a smile to the face of the girl with the green eyes

As she tucked it behind her ear, before it fell out, wilted,

And was trampled to dust.