Still Life with Tulips

Because you did, I too arrange flowers,

Watching the pistils just like insolent tongues

And the hard, red flesh of the petals

Widening beneath my eyes. They move like the hands

Of clocks, seeming not to move except

When I turn my gaze; then savagely

In the white room, they billow and spread

Until their redness engulfs me utterly.



Mother, you are far away and claim

In mournful letters that I do not need you;

Yet here in this sunny room, your tulips

Devour me, sucking hungrily

My watery nourishment, filling my house

Like a presence, like an enemy.



Geared to your intervals as the small hand

Of a clock repeats the larger, I,

Your too-faithful daughter, still drag behind you,

Turning in the same slow circles.



Across the years and distances, my hands

Among these fierce, red blossoms repeat

Your gestures. I hope my daughter never writes:

'Because you did, I too arrange flowers.'