Vinnie Sarocco
They gave me an orchid when my father passed
so that I would have something
of beauty to watch languidly die
it is all about perspective
These days she is only a picture
a corolla in wanting — the first step taken
since the doctors removed her leg
left floating through hospital halls
following phantom footprints in the tile
Fluorescents sheening on top a head
radiated into childlike bareness
these were the first pieces of her to go
likely not the last
She is too young to have prepared
the petal merchants are all closed
at this hour — their flora left indecent to mist
so I had nothing to offer
aside from my words
and their earnest insincerity
She refuses to give up the ghost
with such confidence I can almost believe it
someone has to win the lottery or
make up the survival class and be
carried on as statistics in medical journals
why not she
It has been a summer against
a summer littered in the wilted white petals
that Beauty discards so haphazardly
burying us in the detritus seeking to inhale
to draw breath to swell
up our chests and crow into the abyss
***
Vinnie Sarrocco is a poet born in a Carolina tobacco field, currently operating in Seattle, WA. He is the author of the chapbook, “Under the Oak Tree” and is work is set to appear in the forthcoming inaugural issue of Beholder Magazine.