The language of flowers
I think of tonight’s Thai food restaurant,
and the lemongrass soup.
Now it’s nearly midnight.
I forgot roses in the back seat of my car
from a nice man who took me to dinner
and went home.
Instead, I reflect on the language I share
with another, of syllables and metaphors
traded, some of them wounded, leaking.
How long has it been since someone’s language
harbored deeply in my marrow?
I shouldn’t leave the flowers. They’ve done me
no harm. I put the wilted buds
in a chipped vase with warm tap water,
two spoonfuls of sugar—
reach for my notebook.
Janette Schafer is a poet, photographer, playwright, and realtor living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Chatham University. She is the author of three collections of poetry and the chief editor of two poetry anthologies. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Missouri Review, Vox Populi, SWWIM; Sky Island Journal, and The Literary Underground. She is a winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
