You smudge my petals

with your slovenly hands, dirt

gathers in my soft curves.

These swellings you call rough, but stroke

as I sit in spiritual waters. Could I sink,

I would. Not to bathe in the shining halo

of untouched white, but to remove myself

from your clutching hands.

I’m sacred to you and you bow to me,

palms face down in the dirt. Men like you

watch me float on the pond’s slick surface,

cleansed of the last one’s filth. Could I close in prayer,

I would. Not, like you, to venerate a flowered thing,

but to cast you off from the shore

like my droplets of dirt are in the breeze.

You close in on the moment

when my petals—my sacred flowered self—

return to what you deem as touchable.

The pink you hold between your thumb and pointer,

opening a core of stamens and pistils,

this is what you came for. But you leave me

standing on waters, unable to avoid the

cycle of forced purity.