Cell Walls

It is cool outside, biting
without causing pain.
I'm sitting, cross-legged
because the vents are silent
for five more minutes,
and sleepy with hours
of "nothing much"
looking at photos of daffodils.

I wonder how the plants know

to spring up in the dry cold.

I wonder how they want
to come back each time
after a long, bitter winter
like the mal taste of an almond.

The heat turns on
and makes the curtains
wave to our chloroplast-
filled friends in the dark
and nubs in the dirt,
pale because their two lips
have yet to be kissed
by the fire, silent still.
The air turns on and off
again while my feet switch.
Is it warm in their toes?
They cross and bundle

dead together and alive alone.
I count the minutes until
I'll need to sleep,
weakness of a mind.
I wonder if the flowers count
the seconds between
each cycle of the sun.

This is the first draft of a poem that is loosely inspired by Gary Soto's work.  I needed some stuff to turn in tomorrow for lit mag... so here I am actually trying! :-) (I'm a procrastinator.)  However, I actually do like this "modeling after a poet" idea.  Gary Soto and Margaret Atwood are awesome.  Mostly this is based on the usual simplicity (straight-forwardness) of Soto's work and his brief story-telling qualities.  I'll revisit it soon, I think, because I feel like it lacks a lot of similarities to the best things of his work [his unexpectedly beautiful words, 

"With an eye we lift up the peach tree

And hold it up to the wind —  white blossoms

At our feet." (Gary Soto, "Looking Around, Believing"]

but that's a thing to work on when I don't have hundreds of points on the line.  

 Edits made: "while it's cold" to "in the dry cold". "silent" to "silent still". "sun" to "fire".