On Eating Flowers

And what keeps me
from eating flowers?
was posed to me
by e.e. cummings
alone on the lawn
in the straight sun
this afternoon.
and I thought
well bees I guess
(is the first thought:
wasps, sleeping, or even
merely browsing), and dirt
which the wind has neither
blown away nor
the rain carried off yet.

Or perhaps the opp-
osite, too much sweetness.
And that the bees would then
come to my mouth
instead, think I
the flowers and
thus render me
unemployable, worse than
dead -- bitten, swollen,
spitting and cursing:

The fucking kiss
that stings.

To eat flowers and
not be afraid.

To taste the death
of their passing and
enjoy that sadness, to
be just ignorant enough.

And I think of the one
for whom I keep the best,
whose mouth alone
is worth it enough to be that bee.

And I find
even just one of her
blooms.


2011