Just to be clear, I am referring to my cactus flower. My wonderful amazing cactus flower.

One night it bloomed, the next night it folded back into itself as if in rewind mode, swallowing the bright white bloom back into the night. Perhaps it was just making way for the  moon, which opened to fullness the following night,

the unseen sun leaping from his lover’s face to light up a cloud-quilted sky.

Another one night stand, for the next night, the moon herself was swallowed in turn by the ocean bred clouds to shroud this desert coast in heavy hanging layers of fog

that could bear themselves no longer

and unburdened themselves

into the rare sound of rain

on our roof.

seven floors above the howling streets. night. lima. ambulences and faulty alarms with a few

Echoes of Seattle drowning out the supposed-to-be summer.