with the day’s end approaching,
how you stare so long
into this assemblage of flowers
is our uncertain secret:
their soft scarlet architecture
mesmerising in its solidity,
observing you like minor
stars, showering absolution
on your troubles: you are
the flowerbud straining open,
new crimson almost bleeding
through the tight green sphere,
till their quiet deaths unnerve
like half-remembered nightmares,
and the second hand never pauses
on the clock above the flowers;
you move lightly in the arc
of their hot velvet gaze