Still Life With Geraniums Poem by Alexander Long

The blood orange sky began to nestle
Its way inside your winter geraniums
Weeks ago, a gathering of hands
Hammered by light, water, and care disguised
As a loss I want to explain away.
A flower is burial, nothing more

Than a reanimation of your hands
I might have glimpsed just now inside this last,
Or next-to-last, still life. I could say it

Was wind, someone else's imagination
Taking over, yours perhaps, and you might
Tell me that the petals shiver a little
As you shift dirt so roots open and breathe.
You might try to wipe the sweat from your eyes,

And when you look up, you find the sun just
Where you thought it would be, the sting strong
Enough to slow the light that wants to take
Us elsewhere, back to where we began,

Which is why we will not explain the need
To look up at this, our, blood orange sky
While the geraniums begin to swell.