You never knew why your mother loved them so;
having grown up in a house that always had them,
you never figured out what it was she saw
in these strange flowers, hiding in the precious shade.
If you had asked her, perhaps she would have spoken
in the way the two of you talk, of this flower’s resilience,
how you take it for granted because it lasts longer
than any auxiliary anxiety or inborn immolation.
Perhaps she would tell you about how she fancies
its shape, how its flower is a heart impaled,
how the hurt you fear most comes from exactly
where, when, and from whom you least expect it.
Perhaps, just maybe, you would then take
the opportunity to tell her about that someone
you could not have, whose shape and syntax
continues to elude you even now.
Perhaps you will tell her about truths too sharp
to hold or release, breaths too heavy to reclaim,
poetry books grown too heavy with dust to open
or move, lost last chances at little redemptions.
Perhaps there are no answers for all your questions,
and perhaps she knows it. Sometimes not even
the most sacred of words can save you.
Not even your own.
Perhaps the answers lie in the same secret
places you like to frequent, that unseen
space between books on a shelf, or in
the pauses between a friend’s invisible sighs.
They lie in the cool, dark corners you grow in,
the places which only you really know.
—Ruel S. De Vera
