Communiqué

My love—
                I've settled in quite nicely here.
Thanks for the tulips—brilliant red, headstrong,
with siren petals yellow-tipped, like tongues
lapping up light or little bits of sun.

I added Albertson's Fresh Flower Food
but even so, tight-closed and lank, they hung
down past the rim like near-sighted old crones
scanning the table top with their lorgnettes.

Next day they were straight up as raw recruits
parading off at someone's awful whim.
(If I had waked up in the night, would I
have heard the pale green stealth of shifting stems?)

A few days later, writhing, disarrayed,
dropping bloody petals, yellow dust,
they crept to horizontal and were gone.
Don't send more—I leave here in a day or so.
Better to let them flourish where they grow.

Copyright © 2007 Carol Stevens Kner All rights reserved
from Southwest Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission