A flower called SELFHEAL, in Latin
begins GROSSE, meaning course. All afternoons:
cross-legged, elbows crushing, blood cut
off from that point down. Sticky implements
snicking vintage lithographs and silenced pistols from graphic
novels. It turns out I write books
by cutting them up. Unforgetting sexual molestations
is done with long-lost Zooper
Dooper scissors. Plum flowers from 1955
on a finger-dragged, white wall
some feet from Cruelty’s yard.
When I grow up, I’ll take to chalking the drive
like the last time I saw her face / privates.
By the time I’m ready to die
SNOWBELLED BUCKTHORNED SELFHEALED
you’ll be able to purchase me in markets, right by
basil descended from my mother’s second crop
and slim bouquets of Fife-gathered FORGET ME NOTS.
