it works best on daisies
with petals as white as
lips pressed bloodless
one snap
he loves me
one snap
he loves me not
that’s how i was taught to read
it always begins when
a careless gaze is shaded
with the same monochromatic
palettes from kindergarten coloring
books, when
playground games take the shape of
teen lovers with
sundressed waists,
necks bent like willows in winter
eyes bearing teeth,
parted lips, broken summer fruit
collarbones pirouetting like
phonographic records
that play somatic music
high, golden
tuneless
and it’s only when you
sit in a dim room that you
notice each other’s eyes
for the first time
aged with sleeplessness
two olives in a weak mix
speared by loneliness rather than
a toothpick
you start to undress flowers
in search of the same anesthetic that once kept
your skin happy and blood numb
that once
babbled beneath your chest
until the waters dried with a drought
of song, drought of touch
such is love
the same romantic comedies play
and pulp fiction pages turn
in listless circadian rhythms
as if speaking from a dream:
youth is something to share
not yours to own
half the petals pass
i feel so old
imagine if Christina’s World was
furnished with flowers;
she’d root in one place,
wasting the garden away
you can see her hair slowly gray
within the frame
you can see her become
a mess of petals
he loves he loves his loves
he loves me he loves me not but
he cannot love
once I swallow the flower
and plant myself.