Naming It
by Mitchell Nobis
I admit, I should’ve
learned the flowers’ names
by now. A real poet wouldn’t
just call that one “purple”—
it has a proper name, you
know. Moments ago, I read
the 58,933rd poem to properly
cite flowers’ names. This poem
used a different flower
in each stanza, no less.
This is how you’re supposed
to do it, like how my boys once
crammed all the cars into their
elastic brains and on
every ride sat coolly
reciting each make & model—
“Hyundai Elantra. Ford Escape.
Cadillac Escalade. Chevy Tahoe. Ford F-150.
Another F-150. Toyota. Another F-150.”
We live near Detroit, you see,
two towns outside of Detroit
which means there’s no need to
learn the flowers because
White Boy in an F-150 is so
pervasive that it’s all you need
to know, an invasive
species filling all of
this soil, this air, this water—
this river covered with a slick topsheet
of shimmering rainbow, the water steadily
burgling downstream in this late April
that seems like too much—
too sunny, too warm, too many
purple flowers by the river.
But that’s a lie—
never too many flowers. Never.
We’ve already lost the birds—gods
dear gods, leave us the flowers
and leave me another forty-six
years to learn them by name & by
trait & by every unique sepal & corolla.
I’ll hold them as they slide through
hospice to a greater beyond where
their names aren’t words at all,
to a greater beyond where
their names are once again
called out only by the birds
whose names in turn are
recorded only in the pollen
as it drifts past the billions of bones.
