On Floriography

If you often find yourself at a loss for words

or don’t know what to say to those you love,

just extract poetry out of poverty, this dystopia

                            of civilization rendered fragrant,

             blossoming onto star-blue fields of loosestrife,

heady spools of spike lavender, of edible clover

                            beckoning to say without bruising

a jot of dog’s tooth violet, a nib of larkspur notes,

                        or the day’s perfumed reports of indigo

                                in the gloaming—

              what to say to those

                           whom you love in this world?

Use floriography, or as the flower-sellers put it,

Say it with flowers.

—Indigo, larkspur, star-blue, my dear.