The Sex Life

of Flowers

That Bloom

After Dark

Mine is a hybrid theory.

It fuses the pulse

of the human heart

with the rhythm of nature

and the universe.

My hypothesis is simple:

Every dream

is a flower

that blooms

at night while

the gardener

sleeps.

The dreamer

hovers like a bee

over the flower bed,

his being freed

from physical constraint,

only to find that

in the wee hours

the flowers find

the darkness arousing.

Between bee and being

a speechless intercourse

as unique and expressive

as a sign language

becomes palpable.

Is it any wonder

that after midnight

every garden

turns into a veritable

den of iniquity.

Take the tulips

offering up their roofied goblets

to be syphoned like honey

from unfamiliar lips.

Or the daffodil’s baring

their privates

utterly promiscuous.

Or the hibiscus growing

so horny it’s ridiculous.

The lavender, positively libidinous.

It’s a botany for the hot to trot!

In a bed of roses,

breathing in their scent alone

is considered getting to second base.

For every piston and stamen,

bosomy blossoms entice us

like B movie starlets

in a 60’s Hammer Horror film.

After midnight this very path

is an unseemly flirtation walk.

One need only close one’s eyes

to see their true colors.

Not only have they

designs on each other,

they have them on us.

Their sole rule of thumb:

every night a de-flowering.

You can feel them

flirting even now

can’t you?

Using their wiles

in the darkness

beneath your lids.

Flowers and dreamers

drowning in the dark

together

in dire need of

nothing less than

artificial insemination;

an exchange of pollen

via the stamen

to the carpel,

until a delicate

fertilization

occurs

before wilting, spent,

entwined stems

collapsing side by side

to form

a vulva-shaped

mandorla.

Dreams

make us all

female,

receptive,

so that we live

half our lives

in a state

of abject

fecundity.

Realizing this,

I ask you:

What better vehicle

than the irrational

when the literal

threatens to

reason us all away?

This is the testament

of the flowers:

Nature as the supreme harlot,

with beauty her snare.

At night,

our psyches

push through

dirt to make

their messages known.

Through

the coitus

between

darkness and light,

fear and desire

escape their

thin skinned

terrariums

only to buzz

about

in search

of sacred

pollen

like

church busybodies

syphoning

gossip about

the local gardener’s

love life.

Their hearsay

knows no

shame

nor are we

disbelieving,

as our minds

know only

how to

bloom, being

less adept

at other

courtships.

That said, the flowers

are emphatic,

fanning out

from their centers,

peacock-like colors

of purple, taupe, and jade

flanked by

the curdling cries

of flora

in heat.

And you thought you knew flora.

Yah, Flora and her hanging gardens.

Twice nightly.

Such dreams

arrive un-beckoned;

a reckoning

from the

other side,

sprouting

mandala-like

patterns,

both holy

and wholly

on their

terms,

bearing the gift

of nocturnal release;

the very mud

their roots

are mired in,

a compress

for drawing

out toxins.

This garden is

a bacchanalia;

a peep show

under every petal.

Creation itself enacting

one glorious sexual act

after another.

A sacred stems-a-kimbo.

Despite

our sleep

we remain

subject to beauty,

in order

to meet

divinities

face to face

within the

sheltered

perimeter of this

very Eden’s

undeniable eroticism.

Like the flowers,

dreams want nothing more

than to pluck us

from ourselves

and offer us up

in a gesture of love

for the nearest Beloved.

Though inside

the dream

we are all

our own

light source.

Night is still

a soil

and

God

the gardener

of her carnal

Queendom.

Now you see.

Sleep is Elysian.

Who, then among us

can say

which humus

is more real?

The one we

grow out of

by day,

or the one

that decomposes

by night,

floating our

fears,

hopes,

desires,

lusts,

and

loves

upward

like a lotus

rising

from the mud.