Camellia

Camellia, it's that moist and sensitive. It runs, instead, so pure through my veins, presses up at wrist and throat so delicate. World, tentative--pressing.

With licked fingers, I cleaned the cut on my ankle, pressed bougainvillea between a hollow sound of the canal at dusk and brilliant ideas. Love, meant to be remembered, rustles as pale liquid in parts of me that live outside at night with the killdeer that must be sleeping in secret in the cold.

Chilled, bare arms in the tunnel light. Breath whistles in the little cup. Stillness of these sheer petals--as cold and white as the moon, as the smeared streetlights of a tired drive.

Tonight is a face in the dark glass. The center, shop, restaurant are quiet. Something was not done. Goodbye. I feel the ghost of an underpass, black park, garage doors. Days don't begin each with the same potential. To believe they did was your protection, as was the morality which made a move a conscious choice. Good for that, but sad somehow.

The misery I hold is good sometimes too, for nights, coming into a cold room, sitting down with my coat on.

~ Killarney Clary, Who Whispered Near Me