Another Way to Say Hello

For breakfast I have filled
a pan with coconut oil &
trembling petunias, that tobacco
cousin that I now season w/ the underside
of nothing. The scent of night?
Gone. You can’t mix petunias
w/ petunias. It’s daytime now,
birdsong clanging at the window
& the ocean tripping over itself
like a lime-green staircase.
I’m handing you a word, it’s
“circumference,” & you catch
my drift immediately. Circumference
hula-looping your lips. The private
garden of your sternum bare.
I want to say a different word, it’s
“happy,” but I don’t because
the omelet is fluffing, its pale
pocked face wants flipping,
& the banged shreds of what I once called
ecstasy are obviously just
petunia skins, cruising in the
batter.