Flowers—A Desert Metaphor

             after C.D. Wright

peace lilies laid open

polleny shimmer

of their center—this war

is born by the forgetting

of the smell

it doesn’t matter that white

means peace

how many quiet dead

could the whitest

hands enfold

stems remember when war

had a beginning

and an end

now they are just

always curving

petals

to catch the wind—

someone saying something

is over

in the desert

calla lilies grow

smaller bodies for

smaller bodies

the desert there the

desert here

sand fills all

the delicate mouths

of flowers—

monsoons rip

the gray blanket of sky—

lilies tip their pistils

to water

and weep