With a stutter and a sneeze,

that’s how, with catch as

catch can, with a quick

spritz of cologne, a shake

of good-luck charms. Where they 

can, that’s where, and if there 

is a better place than

along this highway, how would

a flower know? Like Day-Glo

bunnies they catch on, like a craze

of orange balloons trailing

cars of newlyweds, they honk

the byways and center lane.

A highway goes faster than any 

flower in the world, knocks

heads off deer, sheers rock

clean through. A seed takes off

littering commotion tizzies

and mango pops at every 

service plaza. Because they grow

out of wrappers blown

from fries and Mr. Fizzies 

because they blare

everywhere, let me not

take for granted a million 

bells and whopper torches,

let me not forget 

each carrot thrust—though how

something ends is as

mysterious as how it begins.

Blessed be orange for its brash 

and brazen, for its bold

me too, me too.

Blessed be orange because it

despises nothing. In its honor 

let me not forget the acrid

smoke of bloom and bust.

Boombox of colors, promiscuous 

music blaring station to station,

let me mercy the seed

that does not orange, that lands

crooked or double spins

through an open window

to swizzle my arm on the wheel

with its C above high C.