Sidewalk Flowers

I give you my hands.
There's strawberry juice dried
in the spaces between middle and ring,
under the nail, inside the cuticles,
lumped in the bowl of my palm.
I sucked it away like an open wound
and just when I said I’d eaten too many,
I peeled away the skin of my hands,
left them behind, open, patient
like a locust shell at your feet.
Children wait in Narcissus stance,
brushing orange dust over ant holes
by the sidewalk and pointing at the
crystalline fingers, asking you if I
really meant I’d be back for them
one day.

©Jordyn Rhorer 2010