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Tonight, I hesitate again
over wildflowers. They linger
in my ruby-throated vase,
beside the crystal salt and pepper
you set between the candles,
unlit for lunch, upon my damask tablecloth.
Only her name satisfied your tongue
as you spoke openly of love, betrayal --
wonder still behind the words,
between the lines your mind will not accept.
I threw you back Schuller's blatant words,
"There are no problems -- only decisions
waiting to be made." You ducked, as awkwardly
as you waited for me to lift my fork before
you would begin to eat. "Emotions get tangled up,"
you murmured, confused by my calm return
of your firmly held belief.
How quickly positions shift
in this game we refuse to name,
but play as if to cease were to lose.
Would you like my mind inside her body,
both our souls?
My hand lingers over these small flowers,
(wanting cannot give them life),
and I will not take them from their vase
until you return from this, the last
or the impossible, goodbye. They are
a symbol of our strange and dual love --
of your wild and wilting wife.
Sometimes I think fifty dollars thrown
into a dozen long-stemmed roses
could have saved your marriage. Perhaps
they still can. Does this entice you to begin,
knowingly, again?
Wildflowers wax where they will.
There is no price upon their heads
until we gather them, small offerings
in our uncertain hands.
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