I can only find words for.
And sometimes I can’t.
Here are these flowers that stand for.
I stand here on the sidewalk.
I can’t stand it, but yes of course I understand it.
Everything has to have meaning.
Things have to stand for something.
I can’t take the time. Even skin-deep is too deep.
I say to the flower stand man:
Beautiful flowers at your flower stand, man.
I’ll take a dozen of the lilies.
I’m standing as it were on my knees
Before a little man up on a raised
Runway altar where his flowers are arrayed
Along the outside of the shop.
I take my flames and pay inside.
I go off and have sexual intercourse.
The woman is the woman I love.
The room displays thirteen lilies.
I stand on the surface.
— Frederick Seidel
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
thank you for this poem. I read it. It makes the hair on my arms stand on end. Exactly
Could someone explain why it’s 13 lilies when he bought only 12? Thanks.
Hi AE , what i thought was that he is comparing the woman he loves to a lily – therefore thirteen lilies ? I may be way off of course !!