Those Arpeggio Days

If we were flowers, we’d be
crisp around the edges by now.
Fragile and bee-stung, holding
on to our last harmonic breath.
Grasping at last aesthetic hope.
This morning you said that you
finally understood the world.

It’s all a trick, you said,
it’s a Derren Brown trick, and
I hung on your every imperfect
breath, every implied hope.
But you’re still the same
unhinged daisy. Still squawking
at the world — hope does that

to reasonable people; turns them
into breathless flutter. Takes
them hostage, one tick at a time.
My father was peevishly suspicious
of the whole thorny world. Now,
there was a man who was never
hostage to anyone or anything.

Sadly, I take after my mother
who was forever holding her breath.