Potpourri
Every night when I was twenty-one, I’d walk home
from the bars piss drunk through the alleyways downtown.
A house on the shoulder of my alleyway was walled
by a well-gardened rainbow of flowers, and every night
I’d consider letting myself fall into the bouquets, to sleep
through morning rather than walk the remaining four blocks home.
Instead, I’d stumble and grab a handful of flowers and pluck them
off their stems. Every morning I’d wake up
with pockets full of tulips, chrysanthemums and peonies.
I’d walk to work and reach inside for my lighter to light a cigarette
and the petals would crumble out, forming an aisle of the path
I’d already walked for most the years’ worth of nights and mornings,
marrying me to the streets and alleyways. Above my bed,
I kept a bowl full of the petals that fell loose while I slept.
After a while it was impossible to distinguish them from the dust
that accumulated and covered every inch of my body, that filled
the bowl. One night I finally let myself fall drunk into the wall
of flowers and close my eyes. I’ve been trespassing
through pollen patches in that asylum ever since.