The potted chrysanthemum
he gave me, I
undutifully chuck
into the dumpster before dawn.
Yet I imagine it blossoming,
looking at its hung
broken neck of nectar.
What diligent labor
I’d have put into it,
if I’d kept it.
Spraying dry petals with wet
mist, pruning the umbilicus
of decaying stems
making place, again,
for new flowers to open
their small blind eyes into a world
that doesn’t want them.
-
An editor, writer, translator, and mathematician, Kurt’s first book of poems, essays, and translations, Halfway Between Everywhere, was published in December, 2022. His work appears in The Lascaux Review, North Dakota Review, San Antonio Review, U.K. Lancaster University’s Red Ogre Review, U.H. Honor College’s Athena and other journals. Two additional collections, Apophrades and Intrepitudes and Disfigurments, are forthcoming.
