Maybe you were meant to be a maguey,
an agave that takes thirty years to bloom in desert grasslands.
Your heart is intoxicating,
your sweetness distilled into mezcal.
Maybe you were meant to be a traveler’s palm tree
on the island of Madagascar
that waits to be pollinated by ruffed lemurs.
Your nectar slakes the animals’ thirst
and their muzzles shine with gold pollen.
Maybe you were meant to be a corpse flower,
lying dormant for ten years
and smelling awful when you finally wake,
but still, crowds of people come from miles away
to marvel at you.
You unfurl a ruffled spathe in the colors of
blood clot, black mission fig, deep purple bruise.
You radiate your own heat.
Seeking out the wind, water, and sun you need,
you will grow in your own way.
You don’t need anyone’s permission
to sleep for a decade
and only blossom for one day.
There are only the movements of celestial and earthly bodies—
there are no clocks that matter.
Elizabeth Hart Bergstrom is a queer, chronically ill writer whose work appears or is forthcoming in Bennington Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, New Orleans Review, Passages North, Uncanny, and elsewhere. They were born in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, on Monacan land.