She appeared on a night when sleep slipped through my fingers.
The muses teased me awake,
pulling at memories I thought were quiet—
my years of stopping for every flower,
my pilgrimages to the Legion of Honor,
my late-night window dressings that were never just still-lifes.

They braided all of it together.
The gardens I chased.
The bouquets I worshipped.
The blossoms I photographed like prayers.

In the soft, electric hour of my insomnia,
she stepped forward—
woven from petals I had once held,
colors I once captured,
and dreams I never finished.

She is not a woman of flowers.
She is what the flowers became
after years of watching me return.