Poppy

Kelly R. Samuels

Poppies in the garden, your garden,

not mine.

Impossible to keep alive – the seeds                scattered

and rotting, the plant once green-leaved, now brown,

then blackened stub.

Coveting their thin, tissue-paper ways,

their sway, their wink of center. Standing there, desirous,

fingering their petals. Sad girl.

Mother said the doctor who saved

my life was named Poppy.

Salvaged the growing nub,

that which wished to let go. Stick.

We’ll make her stick, he said.              And did.

So that what came after

took longer while I lay quiet,          bruise blossoming.

Girls are always compared to flowers. Was I?

Once,

he sent me that poem about the green tree

and the wolf, randy—what was found inside—and

I thought, yes, that.         Not the rose

nor the lily, clutch of bridal bouquet.

But, poppies. Perhaps.

The crumpled bud and then flare

and then flattening, giving over to wind.

The seed and the pollen of the oriental, blue, so blue.

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 Kelly R. Samuels lives and works as an adjunct English instructor in the upper Midwest. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and appeared or is forthcoming in various journals including The Summerset Review, Kestrel, The Carolina Quarterly, Rappahannock Review, Construction, and Common Ground Review.