Pimping for Flowers
BRADLEY SAMORE
Don’t have enough to take one home? For less
you can linger by a flowering border and bathe
in the air of a tickled plant. The lip will move
in the slightest breeze. Oh? A voyeur you say?
For you, we have beds where flowers can be seen
doing themselves. Some species prefer
the reproductive safety and assurance of selfing.
For those into sensory deprivation, we provide each
client with a complimentary plush blindfold.
Without a concomitant floral visual display, your nose
will become more exquisitely sensitive to directional
gradients in odor plume. The high is known to be utterly
enthralling, so if, when you take off the blindfold,
you find that you’re as bold as the petals’ colors,
we just ask that you first undress yourself
of judgment as some clients become embarrassed
when they step into one of the beds and sway with a
flower so vigorously that they decapitate one.
If you bloom such rampant weediness, you will kindly
be redirected to one of the many ferns, certain grasses
and sedges, and a smattering of other flowering plants
that have taken up the resurrection lifestyle —
species that reiterate a stem where one is damaged.
To remember your visit, we offer a photo album
complete with an analysis of the flux in expression
as well as your temperature at the time of flowering.
When reposting to social media, please use
#VolatileBouquet. As a parting gift, we send you home
with a packet of seeds so you may continue to relish
in root behavior. Though pollinizers flutter and fall
to labor for flowers, we need your help disseminating
the children. If your garden grows lush —
caresses, say, your concrete walls — and you feel
fits of paranoia that flowers may take over,
please rest assured these symptoms have been studied.
The diagnosis of deficiencies becomes more difficult
when fear branches. Although the theory has endured
haters and doubters, we maintain that the most effective
mantra to achieve homeostasis is Flowers are little
more than the elaborate, accessorized genitals of plants ...
Repeat as needed, for this is the topic of dispersal, a system
maximized. The seeds will be liberated when the fruit decays.
after A Gardener’s Guide to Botany by Scott Zona, Ph.D.
BRADLEY SAMORE has worked as an editor, writing consultant, English teacher, creative writing teacher, basketball coach, and family support facilitator. His writing has appeared in The Florida Review, Carve, The Dewdrop, and other publications. He is a winner of the Creative Writing Ink Poetry Prize.
