Now is the Time of Peonies--by K.M.Kaung

Now is the time of peonies.
(For all the dogs I loved before)

I thought I had missed them
as two or three weeks ago
I saw them blooming on the other
side
of Connecticut Av.
But I was too tired
and my mouth was too stiff from the dentist
to cross the street.

A Chinese favorite.

I remember my first red peony.

At that time I did not yet know how to read.
I called it pyo ni (red virgin or red maid)
the way everyone else did.

The peony bloomed and it was at the
back of the first house in Richmond, UK.

I got permission from my mother to go pick it.
She gave me the very pointed scissors.
I fell down on the back steps and poked myself in the chest.

I was five or six.

This was possibly the same year I collided with an Alsatian (German Shepherd)

while running in a park to feed bread crumbs to some white swans.

I saw the dog running
then I was knocked out.

I fractured my collar bone.

Bogyoke Aung San was assassinated while we were in England.

--
Today I walked around my hood.

I checked out
fake silk roses
fake roses made of silk
in expensive stores.

They were lovely
but it was better to buy
the foldable black straw hat with a rim
to save my eyes
to see more peonies and German
Shepherds.

Then I looked at some fresh flowers
and wondered vacantly

why are they placing these dark red silk peonies
in buckets of water?

I poked at the real peony petals
and they felt just like thin silk.

Only when I bent down to smell them

I smelled some real flowers.

The peonies had yellow stamens.

Once I walked all the way
seven or eight blocks
from Arch Street to Borders Book Store near Rittenhouse Square in
Philadelphia.

I wondered why people were staring at me.

I had lots of orange pollen on my face
from smelling the Asiatic lilies
on my way out.

Copyright Kyi May Kaung--6-12-2014