Irises

In the museum, the O'Keefe's

are distracting, splitting

ripe off the walls, all

perfume and innuendo,

lewd pretty girls in a fugue

of blues and green.

Once, you rubbed petals

soft between your fingers

just to see if they would bruise,

explained patiently the necessity of bees.

I recite their names from memory--

Evansia, Morea, Oncocyclus, Xiphenia

a prayer sweet and pungent.

It's maddening, your attention

to taxonomy, seedlings,

failing exotic creatures.

Spring is a tremor in my voice,

petals floating in a bowl

of water, a woman, her dark

tangle of hair, drowning.

Later, we fuck beneath

the dark panes of the greenhouse.

Your lips travel the smooth line

of my collar bone as we trample

my mother's prize roses,

her pale cultivated darlings.

I am still learning.

Abstraction - White Rose

by Georgia O'Keefe