dayroom corsage

we shared a window, plastic seats, drone
of meds, you said, "this moon knows only three phases, 
before the cut, the cut itself, bleeding." we were sisters
of the same laceration, same bow upon the wrist, 
reckless with the extravagance of pileated woodpeckers 
gouging out grubs from sand oaks, artifacts masticated 
in dim rooms, crunching bones brittle as sunlight, 
afternoons of angular incineration, you said "sweets 
are the first to go" so we ate guava turnovers under
the blur of a ceiling fan long out of balance, I was a shroud 
of ferns, smoke woven into mourning cloak, you lit lamps
with a long sliver of fatwood, hurricane running up
the Gulf, a window opened and the shed grew heavy 
with sadness of possums, it is as much from Wednesday 
to Monday, the old avocado giving way, cumulus proofing 
into ponderous meringue, watching shelf cloud flowering
lightning from causeway, burning a fat one in your van,
I was a testimony of grackles, a convocation of ibis, 
you were the pretty sister laughing at the storm, waves
losing their step, you said "we are without redemption," all
my words were small birds clustered behind some dunes, 
you said "your eyes, empty as sea" so my horizons
have always tumbled, shell after shell, wave eaten, 
consumed by absence, another flowering, uncataloged, 
another vine, opening only to moth.

Peach Delphine is a queer poet from Tampa, Florida. Former cook and sometimes gardener infatuated with what remains of the undeveloped Gulf coast.