Because my head is full of one hundred flowers.

Because dandelions were taken; ditto orchids

                    (each a bookend on the hardy-to-fragile spectrum).

Because I don't compete with or covet the rich

and shallow soil but trade in the depths of mingled roots.

 

Because irises/violets/lilacs/lavender/alfalfa share

                     the deepest brightest color,

                     of royalty, mystery, magic

                     but none the scrappy aura that claims:

                                           the more suffering inflicted, the higher we grow

                                           and become the frill that frames the martyrs' portraits.

 

Because I am popular with pollinators: moths

                    big as hummingbirds; birds; bees; Painted Lady butterflies.

Because, as such, I evoke Jesus, Mary's mother-milk,

                    and physical love.

 

Because when cut I retain my integral form.

Because I am an evolutionary work in progress.

Because I am the national emblem of Scotland.

Because I want to prick those pick-me yellow roses

 

Because I am all done up like a donkey's dinner

                    in a Texas meadow waiting          waiting for           decapitation,

                    reproduction and reincarnation.

 

Because Qui s'y frotte s'y pique.

Because I am both ornamental and invasive.

Because my catkin is as one with the clouds.

My words are way better than their words:

prettier, fitter, smarter, and fuller of mean-

ing. More athletic, skillful at sex, luckier in love,

taller and richer and overall more successful,

but also kinder and more generous, humble,

but not quite to a fault: the perfect amount.

My words are prismatic as a rainbow.

They coo like waterfalls. They spin

and tumble like ballerina-acrobats.

They taste of Bailey's and toasted

cheese. Theirs mumble; trudge

earnest and prosaic as foot soldiers.

My words are of a different order: the best

words in their best order. My words have con-

notations: subtle, sophisticated, nuanced,

refined. Theirs flub their lines on the regular.

My songbird words: metaphorical, proverbial,

turn theirs to thuds of toddler fists:

literally preverbal.

They feign disdain for my words,

but I hear them mouth them under

their breath; I see their frosty designs

form in the winter air. I watch them copy

them into their notebook to claim

them as their own. Good luck,

bonne chance, buena suerte.

I put the whoa, the woo-hoo, the woe, the woo

into words, and what do they bring, exactly?

Adverbs, exactly. Prepositions, articles, definite

or in, whereas I frolic in the prolix.

My first word was a sentence, my first sentence

a stanza, first stanza a sestina, first sestina

an entire collection, collection a library

a catalog of the world.

After Campbell McGrath

If you ever take an overnight flight in basic economy,

watch three movies−it's the next best thing to sleep:

a domestic drama, a rom-com, some avenging hero

and next thing you know you're in Brussels

 

eating mussels, and sprouts washed down with jenever or kriek 

and all around you people are speaking French or Dutch

with no subtitles and you realize you are                         home,

and it's that extra                                                                                        room

 

you never knew was there, not just Brussels but Belgium,

not just Belgium but the whole EU! But then you remember

your citizenship test was today, you forgot to study,

and you're late, and your legs won't move, but you can teleport.

 

Then you wake up in wonderment, but the protests begin:

everyone puts their fingers in their ears, crosses their eyes;

no one wants to hear your dreams, unless they are newly in love

 

with you, or perpetrating some long-con                       seduction

to swindle you out of your modest                                             fortune.

They'd prefer the to hear plots of the                                  plane films

you saw, duly endorsed by mass production and consumption,

pandering to the lowest common                                          denominator.

 

But where did movies even come from? From                        dreams.

Do they think it was the other way around? That back

in the day, before film, our nights were blank as snowbanks?

 

(Like when people say our brain is like a computer−shrug emoji!

−our brains invented computers.) Dreams know what we need,

like it or not, not like some random, know-it-all busybody,

but a kind of Higher Power who really does                     care.

 

Those indigenous peoples whose land

we humbly acknowledge having appropriated?

They share their dreams with interest and respect,

might we not do the same? But not so fast...

 

I'll go first...!