Perfume
Pink flamingos meet in the head
There was one rose and one violet
I kept them so close to me
On the tabletop
A sense of confusion
But I couldn’t stop it, I permitted
I let in the odor of another rose
Melting into a peony
I murdered the hydrangea into tiny petals
A vocabulary of bears
I crouched down
There were so many flowers
In the space of the garden
I ordered each mouthless opening
Until they formed into spirit mouths
Birth and death
Are not the same thing
Every pretty floral is painted
On the wall, a key to the whole thing
I pressed it and the walls turned around
There was wallpaper everywhere
It smelled just like the wilderness
A Lion
In the bedroom
After fainting
The therapist comes in
In the bed a stuffed lion
Who sits behind the boy
In utter repose
I think that I have found
The way back in
Although I am not quite there yet
You could have picked anyone
I chose to see the inner life
It was orange, cream, and beating
High Ceilings
It’s this or that
But it’s pretty much art
The way the rug is on the ground
So anxiously
The music so abstractly
Entering the space
Where I can meet anyone
Except you
Now I am counting the words
That are said
To make sure
It is I who say them
I am bent over the mirror
The way that they bend over a lake
In the picture of the maze
I’m smiling
***
Author photograph courtesy of Dorothea Lasky
