I dream of a garden drenched in sepia tones

like someone who never saw Technicolor

but had it explained to them in a language

reversely rooted from seeds of syntax

long since dead.

​

I know we planted it because the gallery of greens

glitter like the emerald on my mother’s ring –

the one I blinked out of existence and back

like the button

like the bead

and other forbidden fruits.

​

They’re in beds of ochre clay the same shade

as the stain at the corner of his mouth

so similar to the woman’s in the picture

whose name never leaves his lips –

the smear is proof she existed

before she too disappeared

down to darker places.

​

The rows hold promises that seem so vibrant

in the runny yolk of golden hour,

but a dying star is not the same

six by sky and six by sea

as tilted gilded light.

​

I try to tell him the scene is wrong,

we can’t grow in empty inherited earth,

graveyard for emptier promises

we still carry between our teeth

behind smaller lips waiting for larger hands to touch.

​

He rips open his own ombre petals,

swallows pistils like swords

into gaping wounds no thumb can heal

or wipe away.

Violet ichor from his fragile vines

drowns the space I hid the small copper man,

fills me like snakes into the long feather reeds.

​

Hope still bubbles up

between the lilies

where he leaves me

deep beneath still waters,

rocks in my fists.