~ See “Daffodil (disambiguation)” ~

Read me. Know me. There’s nothing

behind it. Save the handful of broken

things my smile obscures: chair, glass,

blade, stem, embrace. Divulgement

of loneliness – how his voice called me in,

from where I stood by the counter arranging

rosemary and plum blossoms, into his

hand reaching out, reflexively or with

affection, plucking a small white petal from

my hair – in brief gesture, he held me, fingers warm

on my temple long after he is gone, the chair is empty, and I

am outside again, walking the land with a pair of scissors

in my back pocket, looking for things out of place, narcissus

for vases, letting the wind take over where he

left off, following the curve of my body in motion, always

moving on, even as I am still, waiting for the next sentence – perhaps

an invitation to work beside him, or a photograph revealing

his beauty as much as my own – in our conversation, pulled

slowly over years from dry grass and the accident of my hands

chancing upon his shoulders one evening.