Vanilla notes in biscotti,
on my cologne-spritzed wrist,
lavender—
the bedroom, the kitchen
of memory—
where I beat eggs and butter
always tripling
the quarter teaspoon of amber.
Vanilla—lush
as every boy I longed to
kiss,
every unrequited,
every forbidden love
punished—
Princess Xanat,
beheaded in the forest,
became an
orchid.
Yes
to the black, shriveled
fruit,
the little pod—
to labor without season,
root rot,
hand-pollination,
the slow coaxing
of sweetness.
Yes
to what must be tended,
cut, cured,
made to yield.
The apple—
one from a hundred—
ripens anyway.
Like the boys:
common,
and still good to taste.
Yes,
to the resisted lemon—
to lilac that cannot be distilled.
Yes
to imitation,
to cheap lingering scent.
Rain, grass,
a single rose—
and the body,
cultivated—
opens.
