rain lilies

if you plant a thousand tiny wishes
and let them lie

when the rain comes - no, no
when the hard, long rain comes
the rain that doesn't stop for hours: days.

they will bloom all at once, an explosion of pure, white loveliness, everywhere. a colony of your dreams.

but the truth is:
sometimes you only need to plant one.
sometimes one is enough to bring up so many,
sometimes one is enough.

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and you will sit on the curb, in front of a house that is not yours with a metal spoon. fresh from the silverware drawer. and you will break the soft earth, still wet from days of rain - looking for the bulb.

and instead you will pierce the crunchy soft skin of a little arthropod, a soil dweller. you will be fascinated and horrified all at once - killed by a spoon.

so you will stop, and you will take photographs instead.

and think about how the roadside and the front yards are blooming, blooming, blooming, with all the things you never thought would ever come to pass.