Cupid Gave Me Cloves Outside the Dunkin

1. The lilacs are blooming in September.

Smoke in hand, we are staring up at them

Do you remember? The women who celebrate their love

On the week the lilacs sing. This year

They are singing twice.

2. Stinking, black oiled soil coats my hands

I am digging deeper, deeper, pricked

By the angry teeth of discarded plastic.

Plucked from the bed of the ground they are tucked

Where they unshelter pillbugs and worms 

Squirming, burning in poison earth and steaming sun

But this too is love, I swear it

You will see, when the rain comes

Cooling and polluted but cleaner than this.

3. I give you an orange and you bite my fingers

I split it in half and give you the rest.

We are both hungry. We both must eat.