These mail-ordered tulips,
shockingly gaudy,
open and close, re-open, re-close,
like a storefront, time after time, 
until the noon comes that they open too far and are
suddenly vanished,
a shiver of crayon-yellows and reds, of violet
reaching towards black that wind-drifts aw  ay across the lawn:
the just fate of the over-ambitious.
And yet, haven’t we each attempted that trick, desiring
ourselves into wideness, more wideness, until we are lost?