there is a tulip

that looks like an alien radicchio

or an angel fetus

what the heck

it is too frilly to be a tulip

it is a baroque mess of violins blasted

from a passing car as you walk

back to your apartment where most

days are ordinary but today was not

today you were exceptionally afraid

and then you were not

the tulip sways in and out of your vision

oh consummate and dangerous dancer

oh totally fucked primaveral dreamwing

the tulip breaks

over your head in a burning wave

you could pull a sword out of a stone

or out of your stomach and survive

needing only five stitches

you also have a sudden fierce

craving for hummus

isn’t life a scream

by the way, the tulip was purple

like really deep purple

i go ballroom dancing and then

i walk to your house

at this point in my life, everything is within

walking distance

which is to say, everything looms

large in my vision

and everything hits close to the heart

with millimeters to spare

i think i know who you have a crush on, you say,

and proceed to guess correctly

you saw her and i sitting at a party

with our thighs touching

i had cake and vodka in the same

plastic cup

my life was an oil painting wedged in the mouth

of a lit fireplace

and the smoke poured out thick and fast

and deliriant blue

i sleep the night on your couch, nine fine-spun hours

with the moon’s hand on my chest

when i wake up it is too cold for me to walk home

in the skirt and tights i came in

so you lend me a pair of your pants and walk me home

as i wear your too-big pants

a few days later i return the pants, folded in fourths

on the edge of your desk

when you are not in school you sell, among other things, tulips

and squashes from your farm

you have an unspoken understanding with the world around you

your work is to coax

your gift is translucence

your sigil is water in the everlasting process

of becoming still

i fly into my rages or go terminal with love

and you’re there, annotating poems, stringing together glass beads

you fired in the craft center kiln

shitty beads by ben™ you call them

some are round and some look like

bits of pasta

one is a turtle and another is half-guy’s head,

half-dinosaur

i know you’ve hurt people in this life like everyone else

but still i touch my wrist joint to the wrist joint of your black dog

and say goodnight

knowing we will see each other soon

you were in fourth grade and sam was in fifth, reading together from a book about the trojan war. sometimes you were first to finish both pages and enjoyed a few seconds to yourself as sam caught up. other times she was the one waiting for you. menna-loss, you pronounced it. sam said, it’s actually menna-layus, and you stared. you couldn’t tell her how it brought you to your knees, that syllable break between the a and the u opening like a struck oyster. through the fracture, a violin hummed. a curtain drew back on a cracked painting of a redheaded woman. the woman led a goat to a stream and it drank thirstily. menelaus, you incanted, and went home and sharpened a pencil.