Orchid! Orchid! Alluring beast
Why must your divine exterior dissolve at the touch?
Why the mind of serpentile guiles
Behind that lamb’s face?

What chorus of green satin raindrops
Plunged down in a tower to form your stem?
Stacked upon one another like building blocks
Just as soon to faint sideways, flush-faced, onto a neighboring bud, as ladies at a wedding

Tell me, the origin of your leaves
Perhaps lifted from a box of Christmas lights?
The eight-watt bulbs in pungent, electric lime
Become a sight sacrificed, however, packed away into the recesses of some attic
When the flower above makes its debut

Those petals, coiled like a cat’s tongue
Catching drops of milk
And what of the pattern? Peeled back in bitter, acrid scrapes
Perhaps someone struck a match
And you received the white-hot chrysanthemum sparks
that dripped off
with open arms

Do you know full well of the Siren
Residing within your trifold center
Roaring an invitation into some Pandora’s Box
Filled to bursting with
Yellow-eyed pythons?

Orchid! Orchid! Alluring beast
Why must your divine exterior dissolve at the touch?
Why the mind of serpentile guiles
Behind that lamb’s face?