after freeze

hundreds of them,
bright-faced like nothing happened,
little velvet mouths open to the morning,
rude with color.
i know that look—
how the softest petals lift after
and make survival seem easy
not healed,
not humbled,
just still here,
still open,
refusing to lower their faces

Dustin Miller is a Dallas-based poet whose work appears or is forthcoming in Cathexis Northwest Press, Beyond Queer Words, Beyond Words Magazine, Audience Askew, Icebreakers Lit, and Wingless Dreamer. His poems explore embodiment, desire, language, queer identity, and the systems that shape intimacy.