Buzz

All my flowers are out,
And I can hear him
Buzzing.

It’s the season of worker bees.

Buzz louder.

I was born a rose,
Rubbing rose noses
And sleepy rose eyes.

They tell me
Pythons cannot have man hands,
But men can surely have a python grip.

I paid them big money
(Fear can write a hefty check)
To wrangle and strangle,
My stem miserably mangled,
But does any of this really matter
When I can still be red?

Arms like vertebrae,
Far more delicate than any serpent,
Turn over my petals
Like the pages of the books
He couldn’t sell,
And there are stingers
In my skull.

So I’m blooming bird blood,
He’s buzzing bouquets,
And waves are lapping like breaking dishes,
Groping mercilessly for our feet
To drag us in.

They nearly took four legs
As we stood squinting against the dark,
Trying to see the whining dog heads
Floating between jaunty shoulders.

Had they taken paws,
I imagine we would have
Given our shoes.

Maybe stingers.

Maybe thorns.

Or lassoed
Some sacrificial snake
Before the jingling in my pockets,
Endless echoes of dead dog tags
Sounding an awful lot like loose change
(I already said I spent it all),
Pleaded “Plus one.”