why, happy twenty eleven

digging up flowers

I.

he bought me tulips, their yellow beaks

barely open. the days are still dark. with

idle hearts and busy hands we get by, typing

through the nine-to-five and meeting later

to moan about the day. we pick indian

confectionary, sickly sweet your sticky

fingers brush my cheek. under sheets

we invent music, kingdoms, speaking

in a new language of whispered confidences.

II.

something is lost in the lights of the sign.

reflected, the casino’s spaghetti letters

ripple beyond recognition when i ask you

‘what do people do when they go out?’

your hands mime along the canalside,

shrugging. pieces of us are missing.

later, buzzing from each empty dial tone,

my fingers scrape the screen like a spade

digging silently into the cold ground (as if

to dig up flowers). the silt-water vase

goes unnoticed.

III.

the ground sighs and opens, giving in

to new shoots. bent is the shape we make,

cupping coffee mugs and leaning over tables,

a tempo beat by frustrated fingers never still,

i've not seen him since tuesday, and you say:

'every bargain bucket bouquet eventually wilts'.

you were wise then.