An hour away, a petal falls
A petal, a petal, a petal
They fly to Utah, they fly to Maine
They fly to Brazil, they fly to Spain
A petal falls, a petal falls.
Watch them drift, watch them land
They are passed from hand to hand
Across our minds, across our home
We watched it grow, we let them go
A petal, a petal, a petal

You can’t unring this bell
       of sorrow with your heart
as dark as tonight in El Paso
        Texas by texting more lies
between rounds of golf
         with twenty lives lost
just because you’re El Presidente.

I was chicken
dropped only a half tab--a quarter before midnight  
and hurried back to my apartment
before the day changed    

from a Monday
to a ruby Tuesday  
where my walls melted
and music smelled like sassafras;
the flickering flares of light from two fat candles  
tasted like toasted almonds    

every eternal hour, or minute,
or so, I would try to tiptoe down the hall  
past the sleeping neighbors who were all dreaming
of me, skulking past their locked doors

but I never made it to the street
a feat that would have demanded
I stop giggling, and my heart stop thumping
for any pig or narc could have seen
my crimson machine pumping
ready to fly from my chest    

dawn did finally come--I was
coming down, down from the floor
on which I had lain from the minute
a ferocious fly dive bombed me
somewhere around three  

I walked to the corner grocery store
where I bought pan dulce, and was glad the clerk
spoke no English, for surely she would have asked me
to tell her how I survived such an aerial assault  
in peacetime