Lilies & Arsenic Eaters

I'd rather not think about
the people lying in the park
like sacks of rice reeking
of yeast and urine. I'd rather
notice the clover flowers
and how the marble-sized
heads are made up of
tiny white tongues curved up.
They reek sweetly. I'd rather
not think of the graying
lips of a newly overdosed
junky. Instead I'll see the tiger
lily and how its finger-length orange
petals are peeled back as wide
as wide can go and its stamens
lick outward. I'd rather not know
any mother or father could drown a child
instead I'll study the thick green
lily pad as it floats in a pond
buzzing with dragonflies. This morning
my four-year-old daughter and I
studied a black insect with
short stick body, iridescent
green eyes, and a small white
dot on the tips of its wings which were
held together flatter than a clap --

All week I have meditated
on arsenic eaters who die
of poisoning and un-
poisoning if they miss
their dose. Some of us
are like them, but instead of arsenic
we ingest forgetting and let our
daughter's blue eyes be the whole
earth as it is seen from
outer space.

Copyright Louise Robertson