every time she makes love.

she forgets the moment when, between her legs, a tiny seed appears.

smaller than a sunflower seed, but similar markings.

first time, she plucks the seed off her thigh,

examines it between her trembling fingers.

none of the possibilities makes sense.

no haphazard bed seed-snacking to her knowledge.

each act of two-bodied love bears fruit in little grey seeds.

her curiosity grows while her concern lessens.

piled into a glass jug on her trinket shelf,

she collects them, maybe they're important.

saved later for the ambiguous moment she might find

purpose through sudden enlightenment.

like the day she dodged lightening

taking leave from a lover,

purging something guttural

begrudgingly waking her story,

the one she never let herself tell:

"i am a flower machine

recreating..

when i lose my petals, i stand naked stemmed.

each lip of color branching from my core vibrates

dust out to the universe, maybe you'll be lucky enough to

breathe my bits.

you were. and when i stopped sending my dust your way,

you cried into my axis.

hoping to water the will to vibrate again.

your eyes devoured my nectar and clinging to your cheek

i found a piece of seed.

i held it between my fingers with you trembling out of focus

beyond my vision.

you gripped my stem,

wanted me to save it as a memento, so i taped it into

my journal along with a petal.

i'm not sorry i stripped for you in an overcrowded nightclub.

flowers aren't supposed to get up and walk around, but

wanderlust is sexy and you make me move,

spread my petals as markers of where we've been,

stood naked for you to contemplate diving dangerously deep.

my roots suckle numbness so they don't feel the pain

of my histories barking at my nakedness. again. really?

beautiful and heavily guarded,

you snatch my last few petals as trophies.

i let you.

it hurts.

i'm naked. again.

rebirth a severance package delivered by a devil with

bittersweet intention.

i stuff my journal paper with the partial seed taped in it

into the jar with the other seeds.

little comrades who finally know grief alongside ecstasy."

what does a flower with a broken seed do?