You’re too daggy now
once so ubiquitous
along with hydrangeas
the pairing almost a haiku
every second child fell out
of that shivering font of annunciation
all Alice through hay fever
the broken skin your other variety
Jason’s crew cleaned their bodies
with oil from a familiar orchard
your head tossed its fleece
over the weight of so many plantings
You’re confined these days
to grandparents’ gardens
in forgotten suburbs of lustrous hubris
gummy excretions from pruning
not fitting the clean lines of Rubik cube domesticity
shepherded back to the great plains
an origin where like the elephants
wandering in grand eloquent possessives
as seedling shields howl out resistance
mimosa florets precious as saffron
lay over the trails to graveyards
the leaves finely cut venetian blinds
all frayed by the incisions of golden offspring
Published in LIve Encounters Poetry and Writing September 2019 Editor Mark Ulyseas
James Walton Poetry 