The air is ****** up: it is a flower’s fault
a peony weeping and recessed
its creases looking like an elderly face –
I play dead, pretend to be aged than earth.

You count my rings as pine trees’
but I have few, if you’ll notice. You do.  

I would say your name if the oxygen was
not stolen away: instead, I tongue at
my teeth and breathe breathe breathe in
secret hoping the garden won’t reveal me.

A fairylike, but natural room I am in –
feel its rotten sap still giving sticky hands.