Pink Flowers

What is it about a vase

of pink flowers that turns

the key in the lock leading

from woman to girl?

What is it about the color, the

way each fuchsia blossom

smacks its lips, that sends

me reeling through a bubble-

gum door, sliding from

stem to stem, lost in paper-

thin petals? The song of

these rosy crayons scribbles

a dream as pink as a sun-

blushed beach, where waves

tumble with joy, wrapping

blue roots around my feet,

nipping at a colorless vision

of life, which I must shed,

for it is no longer mine.

Later, a magenta sunset

sponges the sky with

pebbles of raspberry clouds

skipping across the horizon

like hiccups of laughter.

Someone is calling me back,

but for now I will count the

lightning whelks wiggling in

the tide and practice standing

on one foot, listening to an

ivory seagull preach the

alchemy of feather: how

to be still, how to fly.