You and I in the garden,
library of bookfoam on
lattice shelves, Dewey Decimal
inflorescence, logic trees on panicles,
delicate pedicel theorems.
You, juvenile, virtue hidden
in fleshy sepals, tantalizingly
callow calyx, milkweed-
suckling, chub-cheeked
and pointlessly adorable.
You, morbidity long floresced
in budding blunder,
baby feet feeling out
fledgling leylines to the mortuary—
which disorder killed your mother?
No matter.
You, lonely dividend,
left first to lawman daddy
and lost, finally, to me.
All this time for thinking, decaying,
the two of us consumptive, cadaverous,
phosphorus-starved and stunted,
fungally necrotic and
****** beyond repair.

The garden path
of your mind is lined in blue,
lovely vinca, probably
because you're a sad sack.
(Don't deny it—I'd be, too,
if my mother died like that.)
My side grows fireweed, fire sticks,
scarlet bee balm, yucca,
San Diego sunflower,
Compact Fire Red.
Ash for fertilizer.
I had a sister, not a mother,
and she burned to death,
and every morning I am burning

to death with her.