Suppliers lied to me. They said
Their tender blue geraniums loved full sun.
If love keels over, shrivels mustard yellow,
The last flowers puckered small as children’s faces,
With storms of unshed tears, they love the sun.

Where are the tides of dappled shade,
Winter’s vast light? I curse, I hump
Slopped watering cans before my work. But if
You loomed towards me through the city’s haze
Wrinkled now, age-struck, as the heavy sweat
Crawled ice in my spine’s stem, yet I would run,
Laugh to you, lie with all my fevered truth:
”I am the wide blue flower that loves the sun.”