Did You See?
She Had Flowers
Up Her Nose
Did you see the flowers up her nose?
If you had seen where she had gazed,
If you had seen her eyes turn again,
If you had seen the lust of her, the swallows
And the graze of the dying flowers ---
I think you might have been touched.They had planned to leave her but one grey lily,
A lily to eat at her breast. They put, as well,
A twisted oak to grow out her sodden soul.
That's what the gardeners had planned, they say.But I tell you, women like this
Have cracked before. Some do it slowly,
In tiny plots. Some all at once,
Taking whole fields with them.
She tried them all.
She had been sent (they say)
To test us with small acts of
Madness,
Or kindness,
Or both.
She put flowers there to show us
What we had become.