I bruise more easily than in
my youth
and you knew that, planting
your fingers
in my arm where the flesh is
softest.
Did you mean it as a floral
tribute
to what might have been if I
were young enough ?
The bloom's exotic but a
dead-end hybrid.
What else could germinate
out of a cross
between your future and my
past except
this sad memento mori I
call
Orchis-Hermodactylus and
watch
its inky purples fading even
as I write
about the silly dream I had
of Lad's-love ?
Sylvia Kantaris (Born 1936)
*****
Orchis
is a genus in the orchid family Orchidaceae. This genus gets its name
from the Greek όρχις orchis,
meaning "testicle", from the appearance of the paired
subterranean tuberoids.
Hermodactylus
means "Finger of Hermes," because the tuberous bulb looks
like a gnarly pinky-finger.
Memento mori is a Latin phrase that may be translated as "Remember your death".