where does a flower
   keep its flaring memories?

in the petals, loincloths
   light-skinned in
   resplendent ephemera.

or in the thorns,
    prickly music of
    an esoteric cadence
    without falter,
    blood upon blood,
    flesh upon flesh,
    ash upon ash
    tumult of pains and the eclipse
    of a broken archipelago.

in the stem,
    bending to the oppressing wind.
    like your body upon my body
    swaying to the sound that no
    ears hear underneath rivers
    and the sorry tale of
    weightless drowning no eyes
    ever witnessed.

in the hands of the wind
   is where they are kept.
   moonlight shines its
   perihelion mouth across borders
   of untouched reminiscences
   and we have called them names
   and similar aches as rain
   dropped like a net of sadness
   or the debris of a ruin,
   betrayed by the thirst of our
   lips when we longed for the sea
   and failed to heed its
   cerulean calling.