Carnations

A carnation opens like a cut.

Listen, you can hear lashes

trickle out of it, smell the iron

in its blood. Touch it. The petals

feel like a pinch of torn skin.

The taste is something like raspberries

or Sunday quiche. But it looks

just like a cut. That’s because

some carnations grow in the city.

They find work in old stockrooms.

True enterprisers might open

their own nail salons, but others

carry bad memories to the office

like reptile briefcases and come noon

they’ll hit up the food carts, then

hit up the gym. They all know an uncle

who operates heavy machinery

without a license. The elders pull up roots

and move to Palm Springs. A carnation

walks into a bar, orders a drink…

Just yesterday I saw a tall one

swerve into his driveway, towing

a braid of picket fences from his wheel-well.

He clobbered through his daughter’s

kiddie pool, burbled and cursed, charged

the house and lit up the abyss

of the bare windows like a roman candle.

See them. They’re everywhere. Sick ones

bent on the side of the road, thin hands

gangrenous in the June rain.

The proudest flower I ever met

was a carnation. They get the garden

while—Apollo’s favorite—hyacinths

get the grave.