moonflower

I … am provenience … the heel of my father’s foot - the damp of his brow and his burgeon … I am my mother’s bloom sown in the soil of her intentions seeded with wonder and promise … but some petals unfurl only in the dead of night - haunted gardens tended by half-wished ghosts phantoms … frozen to their duties by the mists of recollection - icy arbors of regret and time, passing … if I could but daub that lintel with my blood - force the reaper’s honed, desultory edge to pass over those most dear but … too many I’ve walked homeward, in hand too well he’s learned my face too deep and numbered I’ve plunged that oily, arrogant eye and far too many times I’ve cursed that endlessly esurient appetite … I’ll find no pity, those deep pockets, his nor a nip of banal bearing it’s too late for tears - the winds, far too wet for weeping but I know him too and he shan’t catch me dawdling no - he’ll have to swing wide for this vine else I greet him running and wrap him snug - strangling, like kudzu on catalpa … for my roots reach deep and are family-firm, tended … with love. Copyright © September 3, 2024 Gregory Richard Barden