Flowers are for Pansies

by Chris Butler

Melancholy Colleen
has grown
up
and
away
from her
cauliflower gardens,
and towards
something more
than
the absence
of color
in life,
stretching with
whatever’s left
of her lobotomized
brain stem for
some semblance
of heaven,
as she searches
for her paper
heart
littered
among
wilted
lover’s letters,
painted with
the stains
of
pressed
petals,
bloodied
from the day’s
prepubescent
dew,
leaving me
each season
to be
alone
with
deflowered
nature.