Bluebonnets

of Roanoke. The three weeks that followed: blossom

of displacement, trying home anywhere it might fit.

There should have been more time before their bloom,

and I should not have been there as witness,

but time melted on, withstood the increasing heat

of a coming summer as wildflowers began to sprout

along the asphalt of highways. I’d like to think this

is how the untamed offers itself to the surface,

but even these shoulders: configured by human hands.

In the months that followed, my dog lay splayed

on an operating table, and I trusted a stranger

with steady hands to reach in, to remove the mass

pressing against the soft tissue of his liver.

Imagine being skyborne,

looking down at land shot through with veins and vessels,

paper-thin petals of red and blue:

Indian paintbrush, wild indigo, a circulatory system.

At the first sight of bluebonnets, I abandoned my bicycle

and dropped to my knees in still-green grass, fearful

of the damage that could result from fingertips’ touch.

through dense patches of Texas wildflowers. I learned

losing sight of him meant that the field was thriving.