Prayer Flags

Not choosing, the girl made choices.
Rosemary will winter kill at this altitude.

By worry the mother supports not choosing.
Worry is reverse prayer.

If they were Italian, by now they would have chosen,
grape vines, varieties and locale.

The girl intends either to travel or go to college.
She is either wearing jeans or dressed for salsa dancing.

The apricot tree which bloomed so prettily
is fruited, but the fruits have no flavor

having grown from a pit cast into the garden.
It has a perfect shape.

She has grown so thin. The mother has exclusive rights
on worry. Worry is reverse osmosis.

Reverse osmosis is a way to filter water. The cats value shade
and the honey suckle pruned to elegance begins to leaf.

The mother knows a parable about cutting a butterfly out of its cocoon.
Prayer flags from the daughter’s Nepal trip hang on the porch.

Sun and wind released the prayers, faded
into air they may have saved a marriage.

Calmly the girl gives the mother advice to study yoga.
In May a flowering locust goes magenta.

The father says it skips a generation
but does not specify what “it” is.

Last week’s wind storm littered the portal
with fine dust in swirls and wads of leaves.

The two women are experts in divergent realms
and oppose each other like thumb and forefinger.