by Andrea Carter
Epiphyllum oxypetalum
No need for the moon
if she is open after dark,
completely awake, a circus
of exposure. Fear to touch
her. She could slip her concentric
tongues around an index finger, or
the finger that used to wear
a ring for the pleasure of being
a de-flower, an already at an end.
Her blossom is a honeymoon, all
through the night and gone at the first
insistence of sun. Her dry sickle,
the pink cloak in the morning,
a real marriage with its hints of blood
and bloodlessness, a white-
on-white-on-white derangement,
spiked petals unlocking, un-fisting,
unleashing, her expulsion.
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