guilty flowers

the best is to leave bouquets of truth
bereft of exaggeration, really
and those blooms - none of them (botanically
speaking) are compliments, not a one! but
truth has color that is beautiful,
where truth has stolen its light
from you, the grey of your eyes
as they rise, "oh, really?"
Really: truth has color that is
beautiful, which was stolen, theft
at lightspeed, off of you (okay,
borrowed, generous as you are you
will not press a charge, you
wuss) and truth has also a clean
and a rich, cool, sweet scent
in comparison with which, your
"compliments," your parfumes, your
chemical artifices, and even your
natural flowers, to turn the metaphor
against itself invidiously! - all cannot
compare to your hair, with your face
buried in my shoulder as grace
sinks a fist in the pit of my stomach,
I gasp, grateful for the epiphany, with

the warmth of each of us spreading over

Hey -
do you know? I have never once had the chance
to compliment you. Derelict,
derelict of me.
Will you please,

with my apologies accept?

these