Why do you nest in my attic, yellow orchid?
Here in summer this space is uninviting.
The webs of cottondust swirl in the wind at my arrival, while
beads of nectar telescope the sunlight into little constellations,
painting the world with twisted tips of flying cotton.
Images sealed in copper lockets, hanging (four in total) on your slender neck.
I pretend that we dance in the soil
of my dreams, a kiss on my cheek and I pretend to fall
in love, with lips, with eyes, with ideas.
So what is the colour of temptation?
The green of neutrality? An offering
of substance. Satisfaction in blue spectrum waves?
The hiss of foam in a heavy rain.
We fell like snowflakes and landed in dull peach halls, one after the other.
I knew you in the form of black letters but the days fell like redbrick walls.
You knew me as sound in a throat. And I watched
the batting and let the yelling spectators hurl
my curling form up and into the starless sky,
the auburn sky of every city, the crying acid
pounding at a broken window, little shards cutting
into your soft yellow petals. I knew this dream
before.
I walked this path barefoot on the edge of a razor.
I listened to the screaming ghost as the blood spilled from every pore
of my tired face.
Once, I was beautiful like you. Now I hear boulderous sand at the window,
pounding at the glass, waiting for hours to push diamonds through,
and I pretend to let each grain slide by unnoticed, rolling
into blackness, into void, into impossibility.
The yellow orchid sleeps beneath my stares, only slightly disturbed by the clatter.
I walk away pretending not to dream.