On Poppies

With each commission of human love.

Children born with palms

shut tight.

Nurture this body, your body.

Scanning her

like a piece of meat.

Only thirteen, she ran to the field.

An unusual song croaked by crows,

my grandfather is now weeping.

Call me loverboy.

Trying to take as many pictures

of this fleeting moment.

Aunts and cousins teaching you your worthiness.

Pungency of flowers surrounding your fingertips

as your nose struggles to taste it.

Bryerson Forest, my mouth speaking another language.

Smiling with my eyes.

A man, boy looking at me as a queen.

It was a sky lit up with tangerine clouds

that led her mother down.

She left but she was in us all.

Radiance, shining teeth so big

I have to bite my tongue.

Dying with our hands open wide.