The girl I was had distrusted flowers
for their opening:
          the easy bruise.
I would hunt even if it broke stems,
blood among
tattered instants of fragrance.
But this was before.
A Matisse tree was scissor-cut by sun
and shadowcrack around me.
This prompted the change.
          What I mean is:
          I found all desire is apotheosis.
                    Pull my head back by the hair-hank,
                    demand my eyes,
                    and I will more than submit to softening,
                    to flush in rose, cleave to the dusk interior
                    of clematis, draw nectar
                    into my cuntly sepal and flourish.
          The story goes,
          "On the flesh playground
          (as every body is)
          a swing creaks
          like a heart valve
          letting a plume
          of blood slip out.
Under the mulberry bush, true
even if it’s also a song,
two boys knocked me onto the dirt
and tried to discover the difference."

          One held me
          and one lay heavy
          on me. And I squirmed
          getting dirty,
          native to the fact
          struggling made me hot.
(Berry juice sticky on my thighs.)
The dog in me sniffed its way home.
          Does that make me jump
          from where the girl drowned?