why things burn
My fire-eating career came to an end
when I could no longer tell
when to spit and when
to swallow.
Last night in Amsterdam,
1,000 tulips burned to death.
I have an alibi. When I walked by
your garden, your hand
grenades were in bloom.
You caught me playing
loves me, loves me
not, metal pins between my teeth.
I forget the difference
between seduction
and arson,
ignition and cognition. I am a girl
with incendiary
vices and you have a filthy never
mind. If you say no, twice,
it’s a four-letter word.
You are so dirty, people have planted
flowers on you: heliotropes. sun-
flowers. You’ll take
anything. Loves me,
loves me not.
I want to bend you over
and whisper: “potting soil,” “fresh
cut.” When you made
the urgent fists of peonies
a proposition, I stole a pair of botanists’
hands. Green. Confident. All thumbs.
I look sharp in garden
shears and it rained spring
all night. 1,000 tulips
burned to death
in Amsterdam.
We didn’t hear the sirens.
All night, you held my alibis
so softly, like taboos
already broken.
*
Hello Friends —
Today’s poem comes from Daphne Gottlieb‘s 2001 collection Why Things Burn — because sometimes the title poem really is the one most worth reading.
April is National Poetry Month, and I am celebrating by emailing out my own eclectic selection of one poem per day for the duration of the month. If you wish to be unsubscribed from this Poem-a-Day email list at any time, please reply to this email with a friendly unsubscribe request (preferably in heroic couplet form). You may also request to add a consenting friend to the list, or even nominate a poem.
To learn more about National Poetry Month, or to subscribe to a more official-like Poem-a-Day list, visit www.poets.org.
Enjoy.
Ellen