Green Flowers
- Green Flowers
For the Calla Lily called Green Goddess;for the Limelight Hydrangea;for Spurge.
What self confidence:what photosynthetic thrift
would leaf-color flower?What bold shyness would
gauze itself with camouflageat the very site of show?
Well, if sun is the chosenshower, and life the self
reminder, as it comes to leaf,to look again, then lay it wide,
then jungle green and grow,what ruse of rouge, what lift
of lavender, what smolderingpink could greet that green? [End Page 90]
Could outsublime? What darkervein than vine? Than grief?
What color sooner, bud?What color longer, rind? [End Page 91]
Christopher Phelps studied physics and philosophy at MIT before falling in love with their oldest common ancestor. His poems appear or are forthcoming in periodicals that include the Awl, Interrobang?!, the Kenyon Review, Meridian, and the New Republic and in the anthology Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion, and Spirituality.
