growing up with flowers

Opening like pale arms
the whitepink // the greenblue
of my petals

of my unfurling leaf hands

1989
was the year of flowers &
peachy worms writhing
in dampblack soil
tree roots bump upward,
elbowing through the ground,
they tear at the fabric --
the grass breaking open like
skin abrasions bursting
with twisted living root --
the back yard in august
as green as
an open mind .

They were florists then,
my mother and her sister --
the basement door open to the yard
& the swollen plants, mid-bloom,
the cement cool under small feet
which tiptoe around buckets
of stemmed roses,
baby’s breath humming
in clouds of cream-coloured buds
while tiger lilies yawn with
open jaws in the orange heat