Lydia Davis 15

He read about some artists

All of them gay men

And their connections between

Vases and bodies

And the stems of their flowers

And the stamen and the semen

He realized that he was not really

One of those artists

Because he had never loved flowers

He had never been willing and able

To deal with the flowers

The preparation and maintenance

He was not an aesthete

But a messy old hoarder

So he finished his essay

And learned that Mapplethorpe did not like flowers

He considered them disposable

But was compelled to photograph them

As they were beautifully fleeting, not unlike sex.