Flowers, by Jordan Potter

Already, through the hall
to take a piss,
I look for miracles.
Unusual spiderwebs,
books in the shelf
that seem slightly askew.
The radio is on—
is that you?

You’d be sixty-seven today.
Prime and a lucky number.
Hence not divisible
by five, the amount
I pay on the side
of the road
for a plastic wrapped
bundle of flowers
I cannot name,

though one, I suspect,
is a sunflower,
which patterns itself
in a Fibonacci sequence,
of which sixty-seven
is no term, but is,
in fact, the inversion
of the ninth term
of the Lucas numbers,
that is, seventy-six.

Brahms’ only violin
concerto falls out
of fighting traffic,
Beach blvd and the mess
we’ve made of it
over the years. What would
you think?
Of this or the 101,
the endless construction on
Slater, the parking lot
that is the 405?
And would I ever ask
if you were still alive?

It rained all yesterday
when you were gone.
Why couldn’t it today?
The Sound of Music sun
beams like we never die,
children sprint.
They are unwrapped toys
testing their newest features
and I suddenly grow deathly
afraid of the day
the last alive,
born before our heartbeat
of information,
leaves us.

Everything we do,
we do for ourselves.
Including this:
I cry beside your grave.
Full well, I know, God
damn me, but I know,
it is for myself. Though
not even that, per se.
More for the cinema
of it. The badge
of humanism that it
conceals beneath
its hair shirt,
reflecting like a smile
inside a slave.

I remember Jack, now,
who is actually dying.
Jesus, Jack…
Who opted out
of treatment,
marshalling the weight
of his decision
back into the bedroom,
where he’ll die
with his own tv on.
The real thing. Bereft
of metaphor
to glance the blow.

What is this?
What is this?
It seems so
unsatisfactory
to even ask.
I get back
in the car.
I write this down.
I want you
to see this.

 

Published 28th of November

 

About Jordan Potter

Jordan Potter is a writer and actor from Huntington Beach, CA. He operates the poetry film studio, Blank Verse Films, with his partner, Mike Gioia. 

Read more of Jordan’s work on Pulp Poets Press here.