it had to have been passion
that snapped them off, for
flowers and scissors do not mix
in wine-drunk twilights and
the gloom of unsteady streetlamps,
especially not on nights
when shadows ebb across deserted streets
and rustle through the gardens.
yet everything looks different in the dark;
memories are flat pavements,
tar-bubbled roads and
the scent of agapanthus on a summer evening-
stars are pinpricks in heaven and
trimmed flowers are a poem
on the sidewalk.
Who can say
if it was meant to be?
The lily of the Nile is dead, let her
rest in peace.
