Cut Flowers

Faces     wither     in a vase,
room temperature, 
gather water from     improbable pipes. 

I follow
their expression, 
this dozen 	
that resemble     all roses,
all flowers in the way
they participate     and turn,
soon discarded, 
soon our tended     briar-cut love,
strewn sorrow-music,
aisle-music and tomb-music,
music for the sweet, the bitter end.

And still     in my hymnal
I find nothing for the flowers.
Not a petal     on that wept-dew 
path     from chapel to cemetery,
rough byway of sex and unsexed lip,
that cleft washed into
from solitude     flower for flower--
those sheets are gone 

all gone.
 
Maybe I have 
talked into the air     too much 
but it feels like the story     runs
true in the blood
still     back of me     running

where tree     flower slept, one Adam 
and a woman
turning, all
gathered in the same     treeflowering 
mad rush. 

One fountain     and the chase.

It was not     the cruelty
imagined, 
not desert, not
the blood-lust anxiety, 
death-dread and
frozen     ravishment of death.

It was     in the turn,
done the way     flowers know,
love sunshine,
love even      the too much light 
that kills.

It was     in the way
blown leaves      gather
ground     gnaw flesh,
churn     the eye-teeth
into green     rose-thorns.
 
This is knowledge from the bone
so sweet     flowers should
they really really should be
eating me up now.

And still     they wait.

What     do you suppose it is?
more poems?     songs     for flowers 
already sleeping?     this one turning     
that one 

turning     which one
has     your grandmother's laugh?
Does it know     she died 
slobbering     forgetting you?     how

many     stories in this vase?     how many
leavestories     at all     while
someone you love      dies     this moment
lies withering?     how

many whispers     through windows
today?     

babies     learn walking     just once
is life so large     so wondrous      wild

flowers     in the ground     always
beautiful     turning there     see

it starts needing     starts wanting more      ending
starts wanting     flowers too
    
sometimes     want cutting     sometimes
want you

2 Fuck    
yes     get hard     'n bleed, you

jump bushes     thorns     in the cut     you
roll  
with the wet     wildflowers     slit veins

take heart
2 savor this     1cry

'n gladly you will then
Love
	
	gather

let     sugar water     have
       
        roseblood     let
	
vases burst

spill     a billion petals     turn

     faces     burn     off