You Bring Flowers

We say they are civilised, flowers,     blooming like metropoli
the honeysuckle’s hanging cities in the border
the iris’s blue docklands
the roses with sewers running between their tight petals
 
Patronised by admirals, and bees
who feed without guilt on the rot of flowers, bees
with a hive on the hill to fly to
      But you bring flowers into my house
      and I have nowhere to run
 
Now the power cuts
Now the darkness, opening;   alone with their tumbling
the flowers begin to undress
and the abominable scent of pollen ghosts
down the hall
      to the bedroom 

© Frances Leviston
First published in Lighter, 2004