summer aubade

the prefects, the lazy white dewdrops sun languidly
on sherbert-green leaves of an apple tree.
madamoiselle soliel smiles sheepishly her dappled smile
departing. she cups in the palm of her
hand a drooping skyline,
miniature cities of crooked plastic people and
bolts of ash-saturated sky-cloth.
i drink it down like fire-born liquor and
slosh it around in the pit of my stomach.
hair curls at the roots.
patchwork-quilt bark peels and smoothens, an aged
and defeated army.
the heady smell of wintergreen pine needles
dances its fragile ballet through my arteries.
i hold it carefully in my clumsy palm,
breakable like a soap-bubble baby.
no tulip or violet's pockets carry despair
or subway passes, only seeds.
no yellow rose has hopes or dreams to shatter.
with stems crushed in my fingers
i am no Realist.
with your scalloped thorns in my thumbs
i am Alive.