Pressed Flowers
When I opened her cigar-charmed
home up, I felt her fragile,
fraying brown head brush be-
tween my finger while her body
stayed pressed in thought against an ode.
Even as the stringy, straw pieces of her
fell into my lap, I started growing jealous
of how her flaxen body perpetually
— devoutly caressed Byron ( as any
lover should, I suppose) and how I
could have (with you ) lived like this too;
how a rusted rose would kiss, and how a sonnet
sways— how it would give the same kisses in
return. And you’d hear me humming—
head pressed against an atrium swelling
up with the rhythm of this place in the swollen nook.