I started this poem with a flower
and it was raining
crackling in sheets across the roof.
It was late and I
should have already been asleep.
The thunder struck close and I was startled.
That flower had long since drowned
and my poem had gone to rot,
but the point is
no matter how I begin
some piece of you always crops up --
whether it is your strong jaw,
your country twang,
or your mutilated thumb.
Because that flower I was thinking of
is on the struggling rosebush
that your mother planted in your childhood front yard.
Today I saw a man pick a Flower with his hand. A Flower that has bloomed and died but, her
thorns still prick his hand. And yet he holds her withered petals, hoping they will rise.
Deep down inside of him, he knows this Flower died.