what kind of flower would you be?

--i ask because there's been
enough poems written about both
flowers & love so i figure i should
put the two together & in the 
hopes of subverting your expectations
but instead i realize that
you could never ever ever be
just one type of flower
& to call you a flower i would
have to buy you a brownish ceramic
pot & nice warm soil to
keep you on the porch-- i wouldn't
want to compare you to
a flower unless i could be one too--

if i called you an African Violet
i would be right that you're 
patient & better at listening
than an orchid--
you'd remind me of
home because my mother used
to keep an African Violet
right next to the sink-- she
would water it when she did the dishes--
but i would be wrong because
your voice is nothing like
a violet-- violets are too
quiet & they don't ask questions
about sinks-- they wait
for you to come back to them--
in a perpetual bruise-- healing
themselves like thumb prints--

i had wanted to call you a hydrangea
because you have a type of volume only
measured in blues & purples--
like the bushes outside my grandmother's
old apartment-- the one with the duck
fountain & the holly bushes beside you--
the problem is that hydrangeas
die each year and crumple up like 
kettle-cooked potato-chips & i
can't imagine you letting
anyone take the color out of your
petals--you're not a perennial type
of person-- you don't believe
in an absence of color--

you tell me you think of yourself
like a tea rose-- 
& i think i can agree
but only if i can be a tea rose too--
i don't want to compare you to a flower
unless i get to be one with you--
i've got potting soil & i'll admit most
days i feel much more like a dandelion
than a tea rose but i think i could
live up to the standard--
we'd shake dew from our faces in
the morning & i would tell you
stories about drawings i had made
from constellations-- we'd drink 
rain & pretend we were the ones
controlling the wind chimes
hanging over head--