A Pressed Flower Falls Out of a Book

B.J. Love

the pages stained red. It doesn’t fall like a leaf, all gentle and drifty, but like a stone, and when it hits the floor it sounds a little like a stone. Like a little stone. A pebble. Maybe it’s its newfound density, which is a word I learned from George McFly, a word he said when he meant destiny. There are times, like now, as I’m standing over this dead flower, that I seriously consider things like destiny, like what I am here to do. The sky is life-giving today, and so I think to pick the flower up and carry it into the garden. I have realistic expectations regarding this act, but I’m also willing to believe pretty much anything. What if this flower could be put back in the dirt and, like a red balloon, pop back into life and before you know it a whole field of poppies are tugging away at their stems. I can believe in this possibility because I also believed in Back to the Future, that there was no past I couldn’t make at least a little better by climbing in and out of a car. A pressed flower falls out of book and so on we go. You know this poem, and you can’t stop writing it.