2018

Fleshy blossoms drop
in the scorched
Fourth of July afternoon
like tiny violet birds
hit by buckshot,
or children dropped by heat,
split from loved ones,
crammed on concrete floors
under cold fluorescence.
Asylum seekers
locked in perreras, kennels.

Something spatters
my heart scattershot.
Jacaranda blooms brown
quickly though bees
still enter for nectar.
Listen, the bees drone
the democracy of flowers.
Follow the scent,
the tender center,
make your hands
sepals of prayer.