Skip to main content

flowers

Evil

September 8, 2020

I used to believe there was so much evil in the world,
and though I’m the gentlest of all my friends, I never saw a rose in a vase

Mise En Place

The peonies are popping! A fist that is also a kettle that is also
A pact petals made with whatever cabal of bees decides to stick

Around. Let’s all us shake on it. Ah, these lungs of mine the perfect
Emergency orange of extension cord coil. All my breathing is

Photograph by Jeff Sharlet

Not Even My Own

I thought they were wild but I’m told irises rarely are. Planted; invasive; European, mostly, or Asian. But there are natives, too. These, with their ribbed yellow tongues, resemble an iris called the wild flag, which grows from Nova Scotia to Sitka. How might it have come to this small valley? First a bulb, then a garden, then flowers, planted; now flowers, wild. Escapees or refugees, invaders or simply the left behind.