grow orchids
whose fuchsia lips hang
down with spittle:
the very tips
of fragrant vowels.

These women hold flower
sepals near water
and bath them with mists.
They do not wipe at mouths
that are always open
and slightly obscene.
They do not avoid
the newborn displaying his
sexual parts.

Women without children
herd the stamens and sticky
pistils into the pots,
then let them rant free
and reckless in front
of company.
They imagine the instruments
of drunken bees staggering
up from their drop
to amber.
They worship magenta.

Women without children
lift the tendrils
and shiny rhizomes,
pearlish as boy cocks,
and feed them to the bark,
fragrant and moist
and crumbling to the touch.

They stroke green pseudobulbs
and veer toward yellow.
They lay at night dreaming
of more damp mouths to feed
whose tiny tendrils tumble
toward water,

whose sticky sneeze
leave the ‘kerchief coral,
the million minute dots
whose seeds burst forth
at her touch.