Daffodils
The deepness of the night is heavy hands pressing and I
am out in the deepest of it with scissors
to cut from the ice, my daffodils, persistent as thunder,
this night of lightning and snow,
this frost, the breath of a long dead friend up my neck.
Persistent as thunder, but they are dying, these daffodils,
against all odds that they should be able to live,
this being the middle of an April.
They lose. I drop my scissors.
I have cut them, cut them all
to lie in my arms, dead
like starlings, heads to unrelenting panes.
I take them inside anyway, run stems
as well as my hands, which refuse to warm,
into the warm, warm water.
Still, I prop them, dead, and more obviously so, into
this vase I have prepared for them. But they are dead,
what green in their stems is not better than opaque,
petals papery as burned skin.
I wish I had built a fire tonight. My hands will
not warm. I have left the scissors out in the ice and I
will not sleep until morning.
