A third draft. Shared with dVerse

SEEDS

I bought black seeds.
The plastic bag they came in
featured flowers – extravagant,
optimistic, like a prisoner’s dream.

of freedom. Tipping the seeds
into my palm, they rolled
like fairy bombs, fuseless
but ticking with promise.

I planted the seeds amongst
stones and watched the frantic
rain scouring the earth,
the sun, promiscuous, probing

the deep chambers.  The birds
returned; the days stretched,
like sleepers waking, lifting
dawns and dusks away.

And the flowers arrived
in a tumble, breathless and
coquettish. I knelt beside them,
lifted their lolling heads,

importunate, outrageous, all
lips and tongues and hair
in tangles.  And they teetered,
adoring themselves in an

undeserving world, while down
below the earthline secret feet
gripped tight the shells
of black ancestor seeds.