Caravaggesque!

The tulips of bold spring colours
were in full bloom
now they linger in liminal.

I haven’t chucked them into the bin
at the faintest wrinkling of petals;

decay has its wondrous
mutations—

the purple petals flap open
an unfurled upside down
umbrella,

exposing the pistil and
stigma—so immodestly phallic!

and the curled red petals are
womanly labial,
even pinwheel propellers;

the gradations of magenta are
swirls of silken skirts
on the catwalk;

and the white pointy petals are a
medusa face contorted
in fabulous ways;

finally, the yellow blushing one,
is a strange new flower
an abstract picasso

a flapping, twisting flame
augural and beautiful

when in the morning
it is the day’s glory.

Silvia Falsaperla is a graduate of the University of Toronto. She has published poetry and prose in Canadian and American literary journals and anthologies. She was one of the winners of the Accenti Writing Contest 2020, Venera Fazio Poetry Contest 2021, and Venera Fazio Poetry Contest 2022. She has currently completed a first collection of poetry and a hybrid poetry and prose chapbook. She is working on another collection of poetry, as well as a collection of linked short stories. Recently, she received an Honourable Mention in The Ontario Poetry Society's Provoked-By-Places Contest 2022.