The simple outlines of tulips:
what makes these war flowers?
The war recycled like an earthrise
photographed from the distance
of a six-day-old moon.
The crags of their petals
dance out space with the smoothing action
of the mouth’s own slidings
till their two-sided skin
bayonets the softer parts of shells.
Still deadly places are folded
into an unburial ground where resting
soldiers tell the munitionettes
they’re easy to sleep with,
and for your button a kiss.