You Planted a Garden in me

The rosa blanda embroidering your face will become the veins in my tongue reaching to clog my throat go past the tonsils and vocal chords and windpipe down and down still, burrowing into the esophagus relentless in its pursuit, just, just, just to lay seeds in my chest tumor a pea, peanut, grape, walnut, lime, matilija, peach, grapefruit straining muscle surprising itself with the ability to withstand the stretch craving asphyxiation, those lungs may covet paroxysm but grieve not the fulfillment of a destiny this ache, this devastation was meant to be no, they won’t be careful of what they wish for you’ll become the air I swallow, and the organ that inhales and exhales it both viciously lush beauty anywhere and everywhere so when you see the body that used to be mine, you’ll gasp in horror or awe or both: which one? I’ll never know the garden you planted nurses no speech, nor soil, nor hope of infertility just a promise of bloom and perpetual harvest a pretty letter from dainty lips, viscous honey quenching its thirst a giddy blush warming embryos out of stout cases a brush of apple-sun cheeks dawning moonlight-budding leaves just a gaze and my heart will melt, sand that brazenly melds into laminated glass gifted to strong hands smothered in peppermint lotion who will keep it safe in their loops, whorls, and arches brindle cedar irises roots to this infatuation their existence cruel to a poet who only knows words mere facets unworthy of describing fields of cosmoses a cosmos itself choking on fantasies and tears of scarlet drupes, I retch out garlands born in guileless meadows and as the last petal falls, the sweetest rose hip takes branch its only sin a love too big