After the Sally Mann photograph “Night-blooming Cereus, 1988”
Family: Cactaceae

Genus: Hylocereus undatus

Water: Regularly until flowering commences
Passed down from mother to daughter, friend to friend

this blood moon eclipse reflects in the waxy shadow

of my tea cup, an oxidized lunar sky. Milky clouds drift

across its surface revealing to peoples, ancient & present,

the moon moves beyond the edge; she is a great sphere, returning

the Earth’s light back to us each evening as an act of love.
The shadows of youth slide across the moon, clinging

to the bark of a tree, the siding of a house, the nearest bare wall,

the flat chests of boys and girls and those in-

between with roots that breathe the globules of wet air.

Once flowering each bud remains luminescent for one

night before withering into a dancer’s full-length skirt.

Spent blooms hug the neck of childhood,

a wounded swan seeking solace from the sins of men.

In the deep South, the night-blooming

cereus may flower all summer long.

Water sparingly once blooms appear.

Origin unknown.