Two Little Lilies (for Amarin Ratanarat)

"Lily!" a word weaponized by bullies
back in the day to slash fresh stalks of fey,
day-dreamy, oddball ethereals
beginning to bloom in the community garden.

Lily, close cousin of Nelly, sister
of Tilly, Pansy, and that "horticultural lad,"
Gaylord.

Confused, even as their taunts left indelible welts,
by the Victorian echoes, lavender scents,
and petunia doilies those spittle
frothed cudgels conveyed.

Today's on-trend pejoratives, lily-pale "emo"
or "snowflake," are just retread Molotov vases, hurled
bouquets of injury.

Far away, my love posts a photo of two lilies, fallen
from their stems. "Little Mug," he writes
of the Van Gogh-yellow cup with its hug-giving
duck and emoji hearts,

"saves them with love and care!" I see you,
every Little Mug that, when storms howled
with broken blossoms, gave us refuge.