for my boat lily
 
 
 
If I gave you a name like dragon it would not be spelled
the way the fan-girls drove it homeward,
and the movement would not steal in landscapes of fallow, oh no,
but contaminate us to the hearts of palm,
and spread so diligently we’d both need a drink from the fountain.
 
My world would contract on a coffee bean for you,
and it would be called the blue, blue August
when fireworks cracked through your eminent body in slivers
and fish leapt to the mountaintops for our master.
He told them there’d be nowhere left to breathe.
 
I believed him, and ran back to you,
and consolidated my losses into a single, manageable loan.
I was unlucky in life; my numbers were one and two.


John Nyman