I see no headstones, nothing
to mark a life, to reveal who
the corpse belonged to.

Was it held hostage,
a bouquet torn from the branch
bleeding into its vase?

A terrible student, I was predisposed
to chasing phantoms into alleys, to seeing
carnations bloom in oil slicks: I once spent
a math lecture lost in a dream
where I planted a tulip garden in a landfill.