Good things should stay on the verge of festering.
Half-naked by the sink, I sweated through the afternoon, pruning the parts we didn’t need to be beautiful.
When I brought them home from the florist’s, they had so many leaves—
green havoc, green lineography on the plastic wrap they’d courted.
It was Sunday, a casual walk after lust, after
all the crumbs had been picked, the way back no longer visible,
and I wanted to see some signifiers of life on display.
from “Bruised Jasmines”