On the tips of toes
Long necks stretch to kiss the sun
Sultry Sunflowers

~for the men and women who fish to feed the soul of others~


this spring we will not walk Central Park.  The cherry blossoms and the new buds will go unobserved, and just like a
felled tree
in the forest, their birthing,  weeping, and silent dying, will go unheard.

but the roses come!

delivered by Whole Foods, red roses included with our food order,
for red roses are a vital staple, a gift of the globalized logistical feat that feeds we eight million prisoners, a red beacon to all currently

held in solitary confinement.

The men who bring them from the Netherlands, and the men from the Caribbean who deliver them, they by virus, as of yet, have not

been felled.

and I turn my mind’s eye to the mountains of heaven asking
“From Where will Come Our Salvation?”^

heaven answers with a wry awry, why Whole Foods, of course!

the cut roses pass in a few days, their heads slumped over, victims of their own virus, the inevitability + cyclicality of time.

but the petals, pose a question,
as they too are
felled and fall,
how is our death different from yours?

neither I, or the quietus of the empty streets,
even heaven,
have a ready reply;
for all of us are
felled, fallen,
by an onerous, hungry
silence.



^ Psalm 121:1

And that night,
When the show choir sang that song.
I realized everything would be different.
Everything would change when summer ends.
They will both leave, in different ways,
And I will be alone, yet again
No one to hold, no one to talk to
Everything could change when school ends.
She will graduate. He will move.
The others will stop talking to me.
I will be all alone. They will be gone.
Everything will change when May ends.

-3nwlry