Orchid Dance
Orchids dance across the paper,
green silk arms around each other,
moving to some music we don’t hear.
Small cattleyas in their party colors,
handiwork of hybrid growers’ dreams —
Miss red-orange with purple lip
nodding with her sisters,
sweet lavender with violet,
and snowy bridal white
overtaking little mustard
with her thin magenta throat —
all surprises from this palette
where I dip to find the pigments
to splash across their rhumba beat
of joy.