I have bought Easter Lilies every year for almost three decades. I love how they perfume the evening air. This one became my muse for several days, in the morning, I’d move it around my apartment, trying to find the perfect light and backdrop.

Spring Equinox

Spring has not yet touched me this year
perhaps it has been the sky,
clouds thick as a mattress, with box spring.
The sun not yet illuminating,
petals are marks on a dirty chalkboard,
not a master’s oil paints.

This feels like my life sometimes
dull, obtuse, veiled.
I recently took a substance called Kanna
(in a ceremony supervised on Zoom!)
hoping for a puncture in my cellophane wrapping.
For a few days I was permeable.
To a birch tree I’d walked by for a year,
noticing now paper bark, peeling,
one piece, large as an index card,
hungry for a poem
written by a wood sprite.

And nectar dripping in slow motion,
from the pistil of an Easter Lily.
The clear liquid stayed suspended for days
reminding me of the paperweights
my grandmother collected,
how I always returned
to the dandelion suspended in glass,
wondering whose mouth blew,
what wishes were cast.
The flower’s globe reflected rust colored pollen,
fuchsia streaks,
like the blushing of fair freckled children.

A client said they didn’t know
what to bring to a friend
whose brother had overdosed,
worried flowers who only wither.
The bouquet would need water
and removal of the browning leaves.
It might be nice, I later thought,
to have a simple job.
A second chance to help,
in case they weren’t able.
Enough.