No flower, May,
curls of stiff whiskers
twisting on her chin,
she bobbed her bulbous knees
through a shaggy robe
hanging over grim toenails
on those afternoons we smoked
on the warped wooden steps
of the back porch of the house
she and Henry rented;
laughed at how crazy our lives were:
me, a grocery boy of fourteen
with a lunatic dad, and here I am
delivering her a cardboard box
of canned soups, stews and baked beans,
Tuesdays and Fridays;
May, so busted and beaten down
she could have been a leaf flattened
on a wet summer sidewalk
I never met Henry, the postal clerk
she rarely saw in daylight,
never knew why she stayed,
lips split and swollen,
staring at treetops smoking,
waiting for him to stumble
up the stairs past midnight
At thirteen, watching May blush
on one of those afternoons
when she spoke his name wide-eyed,
lifted her chin bemused
and flicked another ash,
I only knew I didn’t know much
about the darker spirits of spring