The Gardener

To get to sleep
I meditate on breathing,
On the air quiet in my nose,
Quiet in my blood
& under my skin.
I meditate on oxygen
& my mind makes images
On the lids of my blind eyes
Of flowers
With sensitive petals,
Fanning & bending,
Shining brightly with photosynthesis.
These flowers
Grow delicately from my lungs;
Their roots are deep in my alveoli.

I fall asleep
With a head full of flowers
That smell of familiar skin
& spring.

& I dream I am dolorous sound
& I do not have a body.
But then I find the source of my ululation
& I find my body
& I am short and narrow
& unprepossessing as a brook,
Slow but alive in the
Run to the ocean.
& my body is dark, earthy,
Immediate & tangible,
Malleable as clay &
Breathing godly.

I take my body & undress
From the skin,
Feeling that a girl with a soul
Is not so fated as water.
I redress
&, as I am pulling up weeds,
As I am low & squat & naked,
Blood comes cold & tidal
From my womb
& my hips rock abortively.

I reach to catch it,
To block the flow,
But it weaves through my fingers
Like ivy & coagulates
In the forms of bent limbs,
Torn stems & tiny petals
Like foetal hands.

Red lilies strain themselves
To grow out of me.
My hands are hardened
By drying blood.
My hands are cupped
& full of pebbles,
Dirt & daisy-chains.

Not even the God of spring
Knows where the flowers
Came from.