"Flowers" of Spring
by S.K. Duff © 2004

The bare twigs against the sad sky have packed
their crutches and gone. Deliveries in yellow and fuchsia
fill cracks and fists. Somehow, most good things still come

in plain brown wrappers—booze and porn—saccharines
of the flesh. Seed catalogues and new bulbs the same.
Spring brings self-knowledge. The truth can not be hidden

in a Speedo, or hibernating shorts somehow shrunken
in the mothballed darkness. Language unfolds its bright
poppies. Name a poet that has seduced you with words

alone, unexpectedly entering the pink canal of ear
with cocked phrase, ready to deliver. Whitman from the grave,
can pull my daisy with his "Leaves of Grass," water eyes

with idiom and axiom. Perennial charts announce
vivid ambassadors of years before. The sun dilates
eyes into saucers of chocolate, forcing me to break out

the Audrey Hepburn "Breakfast at Tiffanies" shades.
Silly phrases cock back paten leather heels under
the buzz of a boy-meet-girl matinee kiss, ankles

and adjectives arch like a fop's wrist.