Hothouse

By Molly Tompkins

Between there and here, I 

Saw a two-headed sunflower 

That reminded me of him. 

A double imprint in the green 

Thumb, pushing the seed deep in soil 

must have betrayed a cleft heart. 

Still, planted— 

The history of his insides 

Were written in Vietnamese, 

The signature resembling Fansipan peaks. 

We only understood his language. 

Before English, he spoke signs, 

Ten rayed sunbursts 

Meant, Mama, hold me. 

Baby boy, smiling with nubby teeth 

Fuzzed with cavities. He loved 

To rub our fathers’ bald head, like a globe. 

His black bangs hung like night sky 

high above the sahara, no 

Sign of the metal river sloshing 

Runoff thoughts from his brain 

Like a Venetian afterthought, dead 

Ending in a side street. 

He wouldn’t have known the French— 

Grand Mal, seizing him, back to a metal 

Barred crib and nurses’ honey breasts. 

The whites of his eyes blew back, 

like a wave break against the gale, 

His body clapped like air between 

Two hands, clasping and letting go 

For the sound of good.

I thought his forehead swam the Pacific’s Length because he kept eyes for two suns, Never seeing the silver shunt seeded Until weeded beneath the operating light. 

They asked for your mother, 

One of the two, watching, your eyelashes Unwind two disks of brown, 

Spiraled with gold. 

Where are we all? 

We could answer only 

Covering him in kisses.