i am of a collective carotenoid California
and the people leaving their hair to the wind.
in your absence,
i am almost tall enough to conquer
the indent you made
of the Central Valley bristle;
a fingerprint of fertility and purpose
serves an archive of almond blossoms,
i want some
but i am notorious
for falling into a honey-stupor
and fancying fugue.
i know you to be western-true-eyed and present,
as reliable as the trails we tread
the time of the
yellow yarrow and prickly phlox.
yet you are an uncommon deerwood,
a novelty to know every day;
petals and limbs an architect's origami
i pull to unfold to find
what makes the heart beat,
what fills the California suncup,
what roots a person to a place.
i'd tell you
i love you a lupine
but that means i'd have to stay
and i am no perennial;
i extinguish with the embers
of the Fresno february sunfall
scarlett and scornful and melancholy
i wear a white fairy lantern dress
and drown an ophelia death
please, let me lay pretty.
please, don't let me senesce through sunset
when i am a mustard evening primrose
and yellow, oh so yellow
we were sowed in this soil
because we belong in the sun.
flora adorns you with a goldenrod crown
and daffodil future.
i wear anthocyanins,
aphrodite's anemone,
the earthy smell of poppy.
if my sweet william sails with you,
would you let me find you?
i will write telegraph weed
after telegraph weed
because the thought constantly
superblooms in my psyche
my love grows
where my epiphyte goes
which is anywhere but the
soil we tend
but garden jargon aside
i am chasing pollen
to the edge of the earth
to see colors
that don't exist
i am making up excuses
with a coast indian paintbrush,
watercolors, and the pacific
i am drunk
on clarkia winecup
listening to whispers
through the grapevine
Mayflower, beautiful welcome to a New World
what if it isn't everything you've ever dreamed of?
(or worse, what if it is?)