I want to go with you
I want to go as you destroy flowers
on your way.
Pulling off petals to leave a trail.
You won’t tell me for whom.

Back home
a metal thermometer
screwed to the window pane–
eighty degrees in each season
after all these years
many seconds pass where I
believe it in the dead of winter.

Let me run beneath the arbor with you.
Jasmine falls from my hair
Wisteria encircles my arms
And my legs become the red
skin of shiny clerodendrum blossoms.

All of these petals
you waste,
they’re not a waste
on whomever it is
you wait for.