He Brought Me Daisies on the Back of His Motorcycle

By Norie Marshall

Missing petals and bent stems,
I loved them.
Traveling on the back of a death trap,
Shoved in a backpack,
Along with sketchbooks filled with other naked women,
And The Myth of Sisyphus—
But he was much too romantic to be existentialist,
So instead he became an narcissist (*an artist).
The crushed daisies were no longer white,
But an off shade of ivory, just the slight,
And suddenly became a metonymy
For everything I wanted to be:
Beautiful, broken, brave,
Crystal, crooked, craved.
They sang with their missing petals and bent stems.
I loved him.