The Edible Orchid

Tiger swallowtail butterflies
sway through a parking lot
after each other, crazy

with hunger. They drift
as if drunk on the sweet syrup
of white blooms. When you

smoke outside work, your skin
is so pale I see through it,
the light cruel to both of us.

We meet, ravenous, at a new
restaurant. I won’t eat
my blameless edible orchid,

but slide it into my jacket pocket.
It lives for awhile in a glass
of water. Or seems to live.

The Greeks had a word for us,
thanatoi, dying ones, guilty,
panicking, choking on air.

Barbara Daniels’ book Rose Fever was published by WordTech Press and her chapbooks Black Sails, Quinn & Marie, and Moon Kitchen by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. Casa de Cinco Hermanas will also be publishing her full-length book, Talk to the Lioness. Barbara’s poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Mid-American Review, and other journals. She received three fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts