The lilies were orange. They boy in blue
sat in the middle of them, as if by being
still enough he might disappear and become
orange lily. The sky wore its grayest dress
for midday, and all around us people
were moving, quickly, from here to there.
One man chided him for sitting in the flowers.
Most ignored the boy and looked instead
at me as if to say, Aren’t you going to get
the boy out of the lilies? I didn’t. I wandered
around and made embellished pretense
of looking for the boy. We both knew I knew
where he was. Yoo hoo. Yoo hoo, I said
to the scarlet gilia, the lupine pods
twisted and brown, the golden currents.
Yoo hoo. And the boy sat still as the center
of the watch dial. Who could say
how long he might have been a lily
if I had not suddenly turned
into one of them, the rushing ones, reminding
him that it was time to go, now, I mean now,
the lilies, I forgot to smell them as I plucked
the boy out of the garden and pulled him
onto the path.