Showy Yellow Flowers
Maggie Frank-Hsu
Often hard or poor soil
is a fragile, complex mix.
a single season of flood
makes for wild
hurried blooming,
the rare chance
to be too much
before drying to stiff
bayonet-like leaves
that catch fire and burn easily;
a bell of sacred smoke
seen from a straight-back chair
beside the bay window
where nobody ever sat.
I have asked for so little, just
a drop in the dry season
to take hold on the soil surface.
