She would honor the bloom with
her body, Papaver somniferum,
little dream of seed and dust. Ebony
tattoos slide up her arms and hide
beneath the sleeves
of her pale shirt, her ink dense
with darkness. Night flows
into her eyes and descends,
a pelerine on her thin frame—
a body abandoned. There is that much
shadow in her, that much dusk
of an open earth. She has already
left us in favor of a barren bud, and our black
thoughts roll dry in our mouths
as we cough and cough.