Dead flowers, you’re my stars,
crinkling beneath the pale sun. I regret for you.
Vanity is in your hearts, color wet, dribbling odes
with the penmanship of an old tigress; there can’t be
another autumn, another winter, without your cadavers.
I watch you lean as you stiffen, weary and ready,
preparations you have made since the seed.
So too have I studied;
I, in my shrimp form, programmed unconsciously,
dug the hole, wondered silent about what verses might I say.
All the hour-less time, I laid in a clay red bed, practicing.
I’ll pray to the mosses be kind. I’ll pray to the beetles be soft
with my flesh and organs I fashioned
under the conditions of my mother.
She heard the hammers.
She bruised, the blue pool
swelling water from the groundwell, her fluid
flooded my cabin, and my ship was sunk to the bottom
of my time.
Flowers, each petal, I speak to you;
you should not have wasted your brief time
on my desk, in wine bottles and filtered beams,
the wind
only small breaths,
my passive worries
cradling you
hardly.
The Larkspur Horne 
Utterly stunning. I’m amazed! The first line is beautiful and so tender, and then the contrast of ‘cadavers’ which is so unusual in this context, and sounds so heavy against the soft petals…it’s so full of texture. I really like the lines in italics – they’re almost like a lullaby, and the way you sculpt words so effortlessly with ‘her fluid/flooded my cabin…’ is very well expressed!
Thank you kindly. I enjoy writing poetry that swings between binaries: Beauty/Ugliness, Death/Birth, etc. I’m always happy when someone is grabbed by the binaries. 🙂
I agree! I love contradictions and contrasts
Hello there! The way you’ve captured this scene…the word choices you used to weave such a scene…I’m thoroughly impressed with it and rather in awe of it, too. It was very beautifully done. Thank you for sharing! 😃 ~Kelsey
Thank you! I’m glad it reached you.