I press the flower that Russell gave us when we first arrived,
When he let go your hand and ran to the daisies,
Plus the two the stranger girl gave us when we visited the chocolate shop in Clover,
Quite unexpectedly, pulling up in her car, leaning out her window and extending them to us, one for each of you,
Secure and flat in parchment paper, wedged in the collection of poems I bought in the bookstore off the corner by the railway station,
That day the never-ending train came through downtown,

And I imagine one day someone will find them,
Years after I’m gone, browsing through the shelves of my worn volumes,
the colors less but still vibrant, pulsing,
And will wonder what it all meant

cc: Chagall, 2026