Orchid
crack my enamel with your kiss.
Bludgeoned as I am by your tides, I work
in my dutiful shop, balancing accounts
of the rich and unhappy, the parvenus.
Stumble here in your green glitter shoes
for I’ve discovered an orchid in the woods
left untouched by the developer’s shovel
and my people’s obsession with paving. I want
to show you in the mossy shade, staring
into its stigma, the kaleidoscope eye
that is also a door, and how in its presence
I’m shaken like a displaced fawn or drowned man
who suddenly finds his mouth full of air.