On violence against flowers.

I have wanted to hate the God
who took a rake and drug it across
the soil to make the streams-- that same 
God who lights fires in brake lights
and tugs out our hips from
seat belts. The same God who sinks 
cruise ships in the Caribbean and
lets the only death be a boy who
was twelve who played the cello.
And his mother will wonder why he played
the cello and not the guitar
and she will want there to be something 
of it and she will watch
the instrument wilt in the corner 
of the living room.
The same God who painted my eyelids 
the color of the underbellies 
of violet petals-- the same God 
who taught my brother to hunt for dragons.
The God who writes everyone's elegy
and birth certificate with their left hand--
The God of pagans and red candles.
The God of falling off window ledges
and living.
The God of tripping on a curb
and shattering like a mirror. 
The God who wouldn't let my 
Grandmother go-- held her with
oven mitts-- oh there is nothing
I want more than to hate the
God of untied shoes-- but he went
made the creases of book binding--
and there is no one left to blame but
the wild flowers who are always too
happy-- and I sometimes think 
that God didn't make the wild flowers
even though I know he did. And I 
will say three Hail Mary's for
every decapitated daisy-- but 
I will say that they deserved it
for smiling at a scared human orchid neck
who wanted to make the trail into
a church aisle to walk
like a perpetual acolyte because they
don't go to mass enough anymore.
And yes I killed the flowers-- but
at least they were martyrs.