buds open their mouths too soon for a new taste of rain
other flowers blur into brushstrokes this way

petals cling to rain as if this thirst were slakeable
mist nestles in a crevice of petal this way

scent commingles and splits like fingers interlacing 
you lilac the air in every season this way

I pool in the petal sweep of your waist
lick raindrops off the dip of your lips this way

your hand a blossoming of promises tracing
the brief lifespan of lilacs you make me forget this way

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Prompt

My poem began with a photo of lilacs after rain that a friend sent with the message that became the title. Find an image or household object that reminds you of someone else. Write a ghazal* that explores the gaps or spaces the object creates and the ways that person occupies or travels those spaces.

*This form tends to appear as couplets with a repeated word or phrase, but you can be as rigid or as flexible as you like. Play around until you feel like the constraints enhance the content. 

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Jessica Coles (she/her) is a poet from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where she lives with her family, a tuxedo cat, and a tarantula. Her work has appeared in Moist Poetry Journal, EcoTheo Review, Stone Circle Review, CV2, The Fiddlehead, and elsewhere. Find her chapbooks at Prairie Vixen Press (https://prairievixenpress.ca)