Flower Obsession, by Susan Fealy

​Flower Obsession
 
        here is a flower for you
             the room and its objects barely hold
                   their bones buried in saturated reds wading
 through soft rubble flower trash every surface
          threatens decision     where to place a single flower
 rafters corners even walls refuse geometry     
          every piece of ragged red combusting 
                 entropy a toddler
                      clinging to his mother’s hand petals a tiny void
        as if colouring in a man leans into a bed already
               erupting with frenzied reds daubs his daisy at the centre
         turns to she erasing a slanted lamp and i am gasping
                   between them clotted petals stick to my fingers some-
                          thing sucked out the weather

Susan Fealy
 
​Susan Fealy lives in Melbourne/Naarm, Australia. Her poems appear regularly in Australian journals and anthologies including Best of Australian Poems 2025. Her debut collection Flute of Milk won the 2017 Wesley Michel Wright Prize and shortlisted for the 2018 Mary Gilmore Award. Her forthcoming collection explores many border crossings including ekphrasis ( The Deer Woman, Upswell Press 2026).