Poem 201 – Orchids on the Windowsill & Gertrude’s Writing Room Update!

Orchids on the Windowsill

I’ve been successful at killing plants
something about remembering to water them
mirrors remember to water myself…
perhaps it’s more about forgetting

But the two orchids on the windowsill stand tall
one in fluorescent fuchsia grows like a flock of flying
skirts can-canning up a stem stairway to the sky
the other, angel-wing white, giant and dare I say
grotesquely stunning, labellum dripping like lust
foreign and familiar at once

Three ice cubes a week they each need and
three ice cubes a week I give them – something
about the way the ice sticks to my fingertips
the brief panic before my body heat prevails
something about the way the cubes rest precariously
on odd roots like naked legs on a dying woman, exposed, expectant
something about roots without dirt and the brittle state of it all

That doesn’t match the thriving aliveness of the flower
it is all a mirror, remembering forgetting – the ever-changing
expression of success that over time I have stopped
killing plants

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