Victorian Flowers

Across the table, I ask what your favorite feeling is

It’s a Brooklyn summer day in the nearby Thai place

And small white flowers sit between us

With your fingers, you trace the petals like you treat so much of the world, gently

It’s joy.

You confirmed your answer with the sparkle in your eyes

It seems you were born to speak in poetry

Because when words dance off your tongue and you speak with your hands

You radiate life

And I want to touch you

I want to hold you in a garden of Victorian Flowers

Blue viola: faithfulness

Chamomile: rest

Daisy: gentleness

Geranium: shall we dance

Fern: sincerity

Heliotrope: devotion

Larkspur: levity

Lily of the Nile: love letters

Red tulip: declaration of love

White Angelica: inspiration

White clover: thinking of you

White rose: spiritual love

She finds beauty in the flowers in all their states

Greening, budding, living, wilting

I started taking pictures of them again

And Innocence is somehow coming back to me

She’s cinnamon in morning coffee

Burning incense stuck into Jesus candles

We feel the smoke as we hold each other to bed

And her fingers trace me

Petals in morning walks, seashells waiting on the sand

It feels like I’ve been looking for you everywhere

Patiently, sensually, unselfishly

I am devoted, I am yours

You are the flowers, I am coming home