Poppies

There are poppies that line the freeway leaving Madrid. They remind me of you. Of your lips and the way that you smile. 

I want to walk among them. Stick my feet with the hot dry earth. Feel my hair whip into tangles with the wind of passing cars. Kneel down and feel the kiss of wild petals on the crest of my cheekbones. I want to lay down among them and feel the mass of a sprawling sky. I want to feel them purify me, pulling toxins from my blood as they do from the soil.

And there, by the breath of wild poppies, by the rush of the passing motors, by hills growing calm and cradling, and under the pale blanket of the enormous sky, I will give my life up to destiny and my body to the earth. 

I will forget my name and my sins and become only red wildflowers that line the freeway leaving Madrid. The ones that remind me of you, and the way that you smile.