Ratiocination

by E.W. Wilder

1.

She is not the sort of woman for whom one buys flowers;
she is the sort for whom one builds gardens.
The pout, pursed into bow, the serpentine
arms, the hands poised as if
in the middle of a thought. Through almost thought
those hands make the table they lay on. The vase,
the spoon.

2.

A curl of fennel glides to those lips: commas, side-by-side,
impromptu descriptors of thus.

3.

Those lips once branded me,
the blood smudge of a smashed cherub.

4.

On the blood of dead cherubs she glowed.

5.

There is no reason
to dispute.