15 business days 

i'm on hold on the phone when it happens.
the desks goes & starts growing lysol-flowers.
i can't really describe them other than that
they had a purple smell & they looked like
morning breeze, all blooming from the surface
to the chair to the lamp & across the walls.
i set the phone down to pick them up.
they're probably masquerading weeds. you shouldn't
trust flowers. i don't know what fancy restaurant
i was at but there was one place that used
edible flowers as garnishes. i'd put the whole
thing in my mouth at once-- like eating
a dress. i felt powerful until later that evening
i'd get home & feel the plant weeping beneath
my chest. the flowers tasted like posted notes.
the "on-hold" song is the texture of an elevator--
even edges & buttons all across. i pushed one
& the room starts going up. i never said i wanted
to go up. the machine is not a good listener
the machine performs the task without a thorough
conversation. i don't own a vacuum anymore but
if i did i would use it to get rid of all
the dried of flower bits. they keep growing
& drying. they have a short life cycle like a 
house fly. in the bathroom there's three perfect
fly corpses-- they're laying akimbo with their
legs up towards the ceiling. the white counter-top
is their operating table & i tell them to count
backwards from ten. they're so much like 
knots of needles or rendezvous of aluminum can-lids.
i'm calling my surgeon to ask them how
long they're going take to come & fix me.
i imagine her at the door step right now-- breif
case in hand. she rings the non-existent door-bell
& lets herself in. she laughs at how
many flowers i have in my room. i'm openning
a trash bag & dumping them in saying "i was
just getting rid of these." she says there's no
way we can operate under such conditions
so we go into the tile shower room. dotted
ink lines across my chest. cut-here.
there's flies falling around me-- some the size 
of horses now-- legs all rigor mortis & crooked.
the on-hold music crescendos & i don't know if
that means someone's going to pick up.
i eat an apple from above the fridge &
i comes out tasting like posted notes. 
you can't eat after midnight the night before.
i'm tempted by the flowers-- as they grow in
my mouth i pluck them out-- tissue-tossing
them on the floor of my room. pick up
pick up pick up. the song continues on
speaker phone as i put on hand on each wall
of the room & push. when they do pick up 
i scramble for the phone, the flower smell
turning blue. they tell me that i have to
wait another 15 business days to know 
if they'll be cutting me open & the surgeon
who was leaning up against the opposite
corner of the room, cigarette in her teeth,
put the smoke out & singes the carpet. 
she pulls off her rubber gloves & flings
them at the trash can, missing. i make
her a bouquet & tell her not to leave.
i promise to be a good boy, the best boy
she's ever had. she doesn't talk. she shakes 
her head & makes fifteen dots on the 
calendar before leaving out the front door.
i remember the flowers beneath my chest 
& weep for them. my, a posted note.