ACT I: Marigolds 
If I should drive out to the country 	in my most abjuring dreams

Let there be marigolds growing on the highway

Yellow                 and cheerful                       and hungry for sun

Constant             and timeless                       and vulnerable

Let all the passenger-seat conjurings ask whether they were there the last time

Let my forgetfulness be a shoulder shrug the flavour of carefree youth

Let me become a highway metaphor a shade of openness I struggle to hold onto

               Let holding on be the destination

               A field of those marigolds where a cattle farm once was

                             The farmer’s husband buried beneath the grief she planted for him before the heartbreak killed her

               Flower Angels I draw into the land of the secondary plot

               Of the story that ends before I learn to carry them with me

                             The Naivety of permanence 	
               The roar of engine as they germinate in my place
ACT II: Succulents 
If I should make it to the dessert                     in the protractions of my musings

Let the succulents show me where to honour my grief

Weathered            and hardened                     and thirsty

Determined          and rebellious                     and resilient

               Let a stew of loneliness and desert sun wonder what it is to grow in infertile ground

               Let all of the small deaths within me skirt around the parts in the sands where their roots may lay

               Let me lower my almost-dry corpses beside them and open my hands in offering

               Let the offering be an exchange for learning

               A hardened leaf beneath the hardened skin of my fingertip

               The beads of sweat that roll down my forehead bid greeting to the tears on my cheeks

               I wipe away at the salt on my face and vow to keep growing

                             In the tale that does not end with survival

                             The wisdom in flourishing 
               The crunch of sand beneath my feet as I make my own way
ACT III: Peonies
If I should appear as a b-plot                              in the escapisms of another

               Let me be a field of peonies at the beginning of Spring

               Layered                             and soft                 and blossoming

               Vibrant 	               and lush               and rare

Let me be unafraid to flower so fleetingly they almost miss me

Let me be unashamed of my need for soil undoubtedly fertile to bloom like this

Let me have faith in all of the reasons I have always been worth waiting for

Let the waiting be the journey

               A sea of pink-tinged petals reaching out to touch one another

               The love I have learnt to give myself the only marvel worth noticing

               A single moment in time when I am nothing if not the protagonist

                             Of this plot line in which I inevitably thrive

                                            The sagacity of growth
               The rustling of petals in the expanse of my anthesis