The other than

There is calm in knowing.
A hothouse flower is only good if it's rare.
The pluming Audubon bird.
Rendered ordinary if in numbers.
Thank god there aren't more.
Or enough to go around.

There is no twain for the twain to meet.
Because of how you're cut.
Because of how they made me, those two people and their two people.
I shouldn't have tried anyway.

There is no spice of life either.
For that would be saccharine, vintage.
Fibs so pretty they could be embroidered.
By hands that know no better.
Colonial fingers defter and sweeter than mine.

The truth isn't nice to say.
But me, the twig, the sparrow, the three-pronged clover.
Ubiquitous cotton is the cloth I am sewn.
We are most of us and better for it.
We knit, purl one and two, we pack of dogs.
There is good enough in our commonplace.
We stick together, all of us

You exist you few.
As if in a greenhouse, a heaven even.
You fly among us, above us.
Look! We say some of the time.
The crest of red, leaves tuberous and luxe

Other times, and better still.
We are thrown together, such as we are fat, sweaty mess.
Don't be sorry, we like it that way.
Too wrapped up in bargain blankets and velour.
To note the pure red dewy petals.
Or the monarch, flitting this way and that.
Looking for eyes - such a rapt audience we can be!

The wings too silent to hear
Above our fuss, our laughter, our jumble.
Our sameness, our crowd.
Surely there's some beauty here.

I choose this.
Or finer yet, it's chosen for me.
By lineage too elder, too tidy.
To deserve signage or signature.



You might also enjoy:
Goldilocks
Lying In Wait
Nothing