Ritual No. 51
The last April rains pulled the warm perfume from the withering blooms. Subtle aromatic almost gone sweetness invested with a breath of stench. All goes green soon and even the rain makes it so. She said, “Remember the flowers,” but we slept and soon forgot. Stepping from linoleum to concrete to carpet to plastic to blacktop to concrete to brick to linoleum, we decide to play innocent with each inhalation of blueberry, celery, pepper, garlic, chocolate, lavender, bleach, meat and meat and meat. What trick makes us believe this is the world? What trick makes us never even ask such a question? She bathes herself in smoke and rosewater, drips essence of gorse, sweet chestnut, cherry plum, and crab apple. In the end it isn’t enough. The brick in her throat remains regardless of how much oil she swallows. Reaching up through the old gash in her belly, she can wiggle the nested brick, but never quite enough to mean anything like real movement. She doesn’t utter a sound. The roses puff and unfold. Understand, this was all we knew of red. Now, the books, these sheaves of paper, this floor, ceiling, walls, shelves, this door, all covered in an explosion of roses. Our eyes battered also with all we mistook for abundance. What glamour is added now and what hush? This place a pathway. What crushes us more, the intention or the loss?
Dear Suburbia 