But when they sought his body, they found nothing,
Only a flower with a yellow center
Surrounded by white petals.
- Metamorphoses, Book 3, lines 508-510
 

The gods can’t seem to clear 
their throats tonight.

Even Echo holds 
her breath…

Narcissus drowns 
in his own sight.

Even still 
water stirs.

Water blossoms
sway without wind.

The Spanish Iris dons 
her tepals like a brave  

scalped by my scalpel.
They seem somehow disturbed as I

uproot a withered geranium left
in the rain, trembling in my hand.

I think perhaps it’s my own hand  
trembling or the rain that 

stirs its dark roots. 
I take it in my tent                                                                                                    
 
billowing like a lung
and lay it down.
 
Its tuberous roots, 
fibrous as my fallen lover's 

tubercular windpipes, tremble 
long into the still evening…


© 2008 by Matthew Nadelson. All rights reserved.