Camellia.

I am without words
To describe loss
There is only silence, now.
I am, for once, without metaphor
Even when I search for it.
Desperately.
Even when the Camellia flower that I have shoved haphazardly behind my ear
(As a reminder of Spring, of beauty, of new life and birth, o birth, you fickle event)
Comes loose of it’s stem and falls to my feet.
I am without metaphor, disconnected from the loveliness of chance.
Chance? What chance? Choices are made by flawed humans. Chance?

And so I kick the bright blossom to the curb
And pam clicks her tongue as we walk, in percussion
Retrieves the flower, o divine rescue
And our feet slap pavement, malt liquor sloshes wildly as we run downhill
Toward water, rebirth.
We are the open containers, can we be arrested for being so?
(and aren't we? arrested?)
For swallowing (hard) our own question marks
For attempting to ingest the sun, to keep it with us
Warm within our chests, for fear that Spring is not yet here, really
But teasing.
Tickling the tips of our noses and then retreating back behind storm clouds
Behind the humid weight of the here and now.