Celebration by Liz Dolan
Each year on my birthday
an old admirer sends flowers.
The house fills up with the smell
of dahlias, lilac, peonies. He sends them
to remind me how I sundered his heart
his prickly, bleeding heart
and how I crippled his life.
They remind me of gloom
of the hothouse orchid
he needed me to be
with him, the keeper of my air and light. I lied,
told him I loved another.
I fling open the door to unscented air,
to watch the dappled late afternoon light
slip through the clutch of the maple’s leaves
across the lintel of my latest love’s brow.
Art by Paul X. Johnson Recommended listening: Lover, You Should've Come Over - Jeff Buckley Links of the Day: Geometric Animals Hair The Invention of Mid-Century Cool (Sexy book covers) An experiment in anxiety (Writing a novel live)