Petals feel like skin on my skin when I peel back 

each one. The tight young bud doesn’t want to let them go, 

 

but I persist. At first the bloom resists, he curls 

in contention then submits to my pinch. 

 

My thumb smoothes it down; my finger wears a hat.

Again and again until each digit is a silk-fringed flapper.  

 

The petal’s base tucked beneath my nail’s edge, 

A calcified sickle rests on a velvet sack. The veins stain my prints, 

 

bleed into my own lifelines, filling them with chlorophyll.

Naps at my nape become Baby’s Breath; teeth turn 

 

into sunflower seeds; shoulders sprout capelets of leaves to cover 

the places he’s touched. Hands working me over like early spring soil.