With her thumbs she’d press at the beginning
stems, try to push them back into her chest
as if that could arrest the budding.
Not wanting anyone to see,
so they couldn’t point, make fun,
she’d stretch her sweaters
down around her knees,
the yarn slackened and blanketing
her body. She didn’t know then that
young men would come with flowers
which felt like the soft skin
of her own grown breasts, their areolas
knowing how to roughen into crinkled leaves,
nipples ruddy. She didn’t realize how easily
they all could decay,
that some day they’d be taken from her,
the way she imagined her callers stole
each bloom from its stem, a risk
they took for fantasies of touching her,
their fingers working carefully, anxious
that they’d get in trouble, have to stop-
all blossoms pulled from their hands.
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