A midwife—she reaches
for the flower’s afterlife and dyes
it with a puddle of St. Germain. We’re dealing
in floral ghosts & flakes of paint
curved over our fingertips,
abalone crescents. I have been
told to chant words of protection—
cornstalk & eucharist. She says
I’ll think of the bottles
on my wedding night, but probably
much sooner. She says it’s okay
to be stained with a world
of misunderstanding—body & body
& somewhere
souls knocking on the underbellies
of skin, sometimes bodies
just on the threshold of a forgotten
knowing, sometimes mistaking
the before-life for sleep.
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