Love Song #3

I met him in September.

Smelling of salt and sweat and chaparral,

Clambering barefoot into bed,

Not a nation between us.

"I like dahlias," I told him. "Red.

Big bloody flowers on my bedside table

Like organs in a jar."

How beautiful he was then,

Golden as the valley.

Dry lightning in the summer

When the world was all starving.

"I like dahlias," I told him. "Red.

Big bloody flowers like baby beasts

With hundreds of hungry tongues."

That spring I went back to California

With him in my teeth like caramel,

Sticky and unforgivable,

Hot as highway tar.

"I like dahlias," I told him. "Red.

Big bloody flowers warm like the Western sun,

Whispering words wicked and sublime."

And still he wondered

What sort of woman I was.

Sammy Aiko Zimmerman