And when he mentions marriage, he speaks 
of how he needs three or four children, boys 
and girls, and how we will all dine among 
crumbling chateaus sliding into the Seine, 
each castle stretching further to touch the bank?s 
brow, he says we will look out 
our kitchen window into cultured royalty, 
into tended gardens where a lily might 
spread its petals, like a baby breaking 
through crushed velvet, each sepal glossy, 
unfolding hidden flaps of pink-stripped satin flesh. 
I?m not warm enough to tend lilies 
in a garden by the river, I?d rather hide 
my hands deep inside patted snow piles, 
roll my mitten fists in underground 
frigid burrows.  I?m not ready to wrap 
my mother?s white apron tight around 
my waist in dizzy circles, her hips were sea wide 
and carried worry after woe along uncertain 
curves, she kept milk warm on the stove
every night, her midnight tea settled 
cold in the corner, shoving abandoned leaves 
in a teacup bath, the shade darker every hour.

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