Jordan Fay

The reticence of flowers

The street was a heavy bouquet
and our mothers would keep us off our bikes
away from the cellophane’s edge.
Set up on the windowsill, transplanted
and over-watered to bow over thinly
beneath a fake pollen sun that no bee could reach.

We’d seen those bright postcards from family
friends, our favourites in town, but only
ever having downed their cool, brown equivalent
while kissing by the empty fruit bowl out there.

Never to be gifted relief, we were
the snapped stems of the past. If anyone
was to miss the Spring then they’d only be
floating in the clouded vase below.