I seem to see them everywhere:
a sprig of cherry blossoms,
months out of season, dangling

inches from my nose,
on the tree I walked under almost
every day in the heat of mid-September;

a single soup-bowl sized
magnolia, as thick as heavy cream,
held up against dark leaves,
silhouetted by the full-moon October sky;

rampant vines of bougainvillea, daily
tossing their blossoms onto my car,
even in early November,
so that when I drive to work

I leave a trail of hot fuchsia bracts
all the way down Adams Boulevard.
I look for them now.

Today, I spied a pink bloom
nodding as the breeze shivered through
the close-clipped hedge
where I had never noticed flowers before.

But it wasn’t a blossom at all,
just a wadded napkin tossed aside,
snagged in the web-like branches.

unexpected flowers