Matinee Light, Diana Hartog

Black Tulips

for Paul Dutton
He plants his feet apart and eyes calm
curls forward,
unfurls as a wail blossoms from his mouth - frays.
He sucks a breath, bends again as if in pain
and a fresh cry spines up perpendicular to my thought
'Is this real or the blues?'
and splays open in the air: dark, quivering.
He is gathering these for us, gathering a fistful.