David Estringel

Street Flowers

Night blooms push 
through the cooling bustle 
of footsteps 
and concrete street corners,
unfolding, blue, 
from sidewalk cracks 
under streetlamp moons and
the twinkle of city lights.
Savage beauties 
with perfumed petals 
and shapely stems 
pale against the night sky 
and their nectared dapples of scarlet.
So delicate. 
So sweet.
So thorned to the touch.
Look, 
how they flutter in winds of
passing taxi cabs and
heavy-soled feet,
candying the air with 
kisses and promises, ephemeral,
in lure of lotus-eaters
and forgetful exchanges 
in dark alleyways.
The night 
(and dance) are long
within the wall-less confines of
their cement gardens,
‘til the break of day and
heavy rumbles of delivery trucks
send them scattering—tattered and torn—
into the shadows
of their morning slumbers.

***

Originally published in Terror House Magazine