What an Air Plant Really Needs

 What an Air Plant Really Needs

Beach zest knife-scraped from bluff rocks, 

deposited in glass jars until brittle,

pummeled, dissolved in distilled water, 

and misted on the greenish parts.

Sunlight, not directly. Lamplight,

any kind. Candles, nearby, if exacerbated

off the glassy surfaces of recent plastics.

The company of small figurines —

never a bad idea: realistic farm animals 

often bring solace. Perhaps they sense 

a fellow striver. To thrive, an air plant really needs

the intermittent company of millennial men

who want children but haven’t found mates

or admitted this desire to themselves and thereby emit 

a kind of stimulating sound wave, unfortunately 

undetectable by other flora. The polka dot plant, 

in particular, will hear nothing, and continue 

its spindle upwards, expending its summed energy 

into unsheathing finial 

miniatured leaves.