Peony

In my next life, I
like to say, because
I am always talking
about past lives and
next lives, I want to
be a peony farmer.
I will have fields and
fields of blowsy blossoms
in shades of red and
 rose and white,
their thin petals curved
around each other
like shimmering fabric,
alive for five minutes
before shedding their
beauty and breaking
my heart all over
again as they have
done for spring upon
spring upon spring
and yet, I cannot,
as the French say, stop
from eating my own
heart when the month
of June comes and goes.