“He bought a flower that dances to music
for his cousin Bonita Portofino
expecting her first child,”
I wrote years before you were born.
I didn’t know her. She wasn’t my cousin.
He and she were only in my mind.
Then I woke this morning thinking of you,
and that flower a person
might set near an infant in a cradle
to fall asleep or wake
to that music. I’m wondering
are your eyes darker than your hair?
Peter Mladinic's most recent book of poems, The Homesick Mortician, is available from BlazeVOX books. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.