Don’t ask me so soon
when I’m going to leave you.
It’s only mid-June, a few more weeks
of peonies yet. I used to hate
their furry scent, their fat cheeks packed
with held breath, the way they’d crumple open
later, like women in tears.
Now I insist I’ll never grow sick of them.
So I’m extravagant!
Here: stand over this vase.
Do you call the dipping in your gut
happiness? Do the letters of my name
go loose in your mouth, all salt
and silver, too strange to spell me?
Am I perfectly clear to you now,
Tell me it isn’t marvelous.
Or do you think it’s just this
brief confusion in the foyer,
these giddy flowers?