Rhododendron blooms at the window,
lapping at the glass. Obscene tongues.
Their smattering of kisses in the wind,
a seasonal ache. Their leaf bobs—
the way they clasp and unclasp flowers
to mark memory and time. Rosettes,
fused mouths puckered into refusal.
Saying nothing. Breathing nothing
but their acidic earth. The loam of a place
unhospitable beneath the white pine
whose killing needles glint in shards
of dire necessity. And where flowers
bud and break, where the hummingbirds
careen, I am weary of this sharp order.