white roses…

STAY
by Kim Addonizio

So your device has a low battery & seems to drain faster each day.
Maybe you should double your medication.
You might feel queasy, but also as if the spatula flattening you to the fry pan
has lifted a little.
So your breath comes out scorched, so what.
Inside, trust me on this,
there’s a ribbon of beach by a lake,
in the sand, fragments of a fossilized creature resembling a tulip.
Back in the Paleozoic, online wasn’t invented yet
so everyone had to wander alone & miserable through the volcanic wastes
or just glue themselves to a rock hoping someone would pass by.
Now you can sob to an image of your friend a continent away
& be consoled.
Please wait for the transmissions, however faint.
Listen: when a stranger  steps into the elevator with a bouquet of white
   roses not meant for you,
they’re meant for you.

 
Kim Addonizio, “Stay” from   Now We’’re Getting Somewhere. Published by W.W. Norton and Used by permission of Massie and & McQuilkin Literary