Flowers, changing water, adding aspirin, nitrogen, potash
or sugar white to keep lintness from descending
upon these purple and magenta aster's
with broad golden centers, and petals
packed in two rows making fringe above green spread
leaves still alive.
Keep cutting stems to retain the vertical pull of water
up into the barely charged life.
She said there was a tiny charge of energy
still like a cord moving between me and the child, a girl.
Though its body life had stopped after four months.
Only one leg intact on the fetus.
It's better, the doctor said.
Nature Knows best, he said at the end.
That was 10 years ago.
He was pulling me along on an immaculate silver table.
Larger than a serving tray, I thought.
She'd over me then white linen, and their faces soothing.
Shapes of words and eyes I couldn't identify.
Something inside me had broken though I tried to hold it
in read on everything.
In the White stone picture, I always place flowers.
First water, then the spiked metal frog,
where each flower is stuck in arrangements
of height, darkness, or intensity of bloom.
The accidents interest me.
The Japanese effect of less space
showing its wandering shape between leaves
and the sudden curve of a stem dying slowly towards what
light is in the room.
One forgets about hunger absorbed
in the fuchsia and the mauve.
I'm going to read a few love poems now to finish with.