Lilac

By REBECCA DINERSTEIN

April 2009

Lover, I’ve made you a paper lilac

after spending some time at the tree.

I think the construction is right,

a few scraps, wound into strands, making

a coiled vine that accumulates into bunch blossoms.

When you come to get it,

I will insist that you take my top off

and you will attribute its fragrance to my skin.

We are good liars and good kissers.

Eventually, I will go with a stranger

to the tree and lie there with him,

not picking the lilacs, which will feel very romantic,

not promising to fashion anything in his image

or the image of nature, not comparing this lilac

to the one before it, only reckoning how much longer

the sun will be up, and reveling in how dusk

takes the color off flowers and puts it behind them.

The night lands. It is not like red, or even black.