Between the Sepals

my pink petals darkened brown 

I thought for the sin of my unwashed hands. 

Barbie doll romantic reenactments

 always terminated in taboo 

Georgia O’Keefe finger painting.

When I first saw a lady slipper in the woods, 

I knew it had nothing to do with shoes,

 unless you’re talking pumps, just for the sound of it. 

it has a labellum,

 just say it slow and sultry like with your honey sweet lips.

And of course bellum is Latin for war.

A phalaenopsis orchid:

phalaina from Greek, meaning moth

but I see a soft phallus in the word, spelled more prettily.

I mean it has a tiny nub

called a column, and therefore

columns in common flowers are 

called the stigma, 

and that’s what I certainly had,

with my boy-bruised petals 

back in a spring equinox that was never equal. 

Maybe Aristotle knew what he was talking about

when he used opsis to mean final tragedy,

because everyone knows moths aren’t as good

as butterflies.

Receptacle, they brand the 

swollen segment beneath the blossom.

Doesn’t the flower sound so used now? 

No worries,

they tell me it went willingly

 to all the bees that desired it 

 and it’s not the bees fault 

the flowers bloomed with such

alluring submission.

There have always been too many bees to count.

How funny that bees save their cultish devotion for only one 

of their stature

which is never a flower.

over stroked metaphors of flora 

turn feral fauna I suspect

if you read between the sepals.

 

 

--Lara L.