Mercy for Awhile
By Jade Riordan
The skulls of tulips & tiger
lilies are proof of the wind
—a bluster of pollen & sugar
-blood, air across the face
of August, a cloud lifted curtsey
then stand. I stretch the sturdy
stem of my body like petal-
teeth bared. Curve my torso
’s orange-tipped aerodream
like daylight, like the sun
’s endless determination to be
the sole memory of flowers—
bright as small kindnesses.
O, I blow myself a kiss, all
carnivore grin and bite. I reach
down like night, like a gracious
winter, like a minor goddess
fallen. O, I pluck my own spiral
-led roots from the animal-house
of dirt, rip upward through the tulip
bulb of my frontal bone. Scatter
to the wind.
*