House Flower

My mother called me a house flower
as young as five as I sat deep inside
summer outside, me with pen and paper
she'd shake her head, drink her iced tea
return to gardening or haying or mowing
and me, me young and already heavy
would look up as she slipped away
bite my lip and glance toward the window
but I am a house flower, a wall flower
a tulip, a cultivated hot house blossom
a rose, a daffodil, a lily, a bulbous bulb
I pull myself in, deep, I wrap and contract
I close my leaves and petals and insulate
I am thirty and I sit on the interior of a
cheap but cavernous Brooklyn apartment
high up from the street but blessed
with a view on all sides