Our Flower Girl
for T.L.C.

pussy-vase -- place
to place flowers

hole to fill
with as many colors
as crayons

baby’s breath to shove in
until opening is closed

there are vases for flowers
ways to present
an arrangement

moist place
to keep flowers fresh
stuffed tight, stretched taut
with flower stems,
with flower stalks

have to hold steady
until the petals drop
until they all fall off

you’d have to lie still
with Ulysses, The Bible,
Invisible Man, Middlemarch,
Atlas Shrugged or War and Peace
in the window of the florist

customers passing,
window shopping


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2008
12:36 p.m. 10.02.08