[return to Contents Page]

Ava Cipri

Third Anniversary

It is difficult to say which I prefer: the initial desiring of orchids as we walked the atrium of Phipps Conservatory; the sight of you carrying one home on the 64A Squirrel Hill Bus, a brown box balancing on your knees, the cascading inflorences unmistakable dressed in tissue paper and cellophane.

the      unwrapping
the
un      wrapping

its weighted claim on the kitchen table, filling me, the room, our apartment: arched green stalk fastened by effervescent fireflies to black reed, and above the spire a brief drift of white moth orchid blooms like tethered clouds; the china pot it rises from, already so much like an heirloom with its sketched-out storyline in enamel: the pheasants and marigolds in bold strokes of orange, blue, and purple, punctuated in green and gold; sharing the gift with guests or keeping it to myself; saying how I received the phalaenopsis and from whom; how the scent imbued into evening, gone, upon waking; the way I care for it, carrying the orchid room from room through seasons modifying the light, temperature, and humidity; the pruning, studying and forgetting it ...

dormant orchid—
his single intention      held
in porcelain