Ars Poetica

This far south, it smells
too sweet in February.
Too much is blooming.

I am beautiful when
I notice this. I take
the scent of roses

so deep into my lungs
even my breath tastes
syrupy. I confess:

I try on grief in poems
like hats. I cry
and call my swollen face

a decoration. Today,
I mourn: winter, graduation,
my father. This is the shade

that keeps me cool enough
to sit for hours outside
the library and watch

the people unburden
themselves of books
they never finished reading.