Wild Sweet William
I am trying to caution you
to the change in the weather, but
you are preoccupied
pressing black-eyed susans so
tightly into a book
there is no air left for the future
You are always doing this, I remember
last June, bergamot in my
coffee pot in the waist
of your pants
Flicking through page after
page of specimen
I asked, “what is the
desired outcome?” and you
stepped outside, returned fists
full of New England aster
Instead of writing I
daydream geraniums, your fingertips pressing
them through my eye sockets
It was not so hard before,
when I gathered
refuge under your thumb which
pressed sunday mornings closed
with melancholy
made reluctant
before you noticed the
first bulbs beyond the fence
In my half
of the study, and sit down to write, but
I can’t resist calling “there are only
so many flowers
a man can press”
Next year when bundles of compass plant
are stored in the pantry, I remark caustically
how odd it is to live in a temple
preserving corpses
you repeat
into your pillow
their scientific names, testing
pronunciation
I stand
in the doorway
watching you in the garden,
a prophet plucking penstemon seed heads
In the breeze disturbing
meadow sedge is
our first fall of
temperature
our future
funeral-attired
cone flower
columbine
goldenrod
young golden
Alexander
wild sweet William
Zachary Dankert is a creator living on unceded Miami territory known as Indianapolis, IN. His published work can be found in Tofu Ink Arts Press, West Trade Review, and Vita Poetica, among others. His goal in life is to write a single funny poem.