Love Poem: Black Orchid

Black Orchid

I drank bottles
of potent optimism,
trampling impatiens 
in the garden bed.

In love's labyrinth
I stumbled in the hedges,
emerging to disengorge
in a plaster fountain
under a starless sky.

I awoke a sloth
in morning's garish chasm,
the silent telephone blooming
like a black orchid.