Known as rose mallow, but closer to elegy, those petals ribbed as a parasol’s
in that ghost country an ocean from here. What do I do with memory, or
the velvet interior, each blossom bedding in green? I’ve been leaving for
decades from the harbor railing. That humid spring, before either of us
touched grief like a hive in a glass bell, I was starting to miss you. I’ve
forgotten the heat in your palms. Even now, I drink down the hooked
moon’s wild and lone tableaux. How little we knew. Love asks for lightning,
not the field.
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