Weeds
Queen Anne's lace, prideful name
for a blossom resembling a fried egg,
and black-eyed Susan, glamorous title
for a urine-colored daisy.
Mundane. Quotidian.
Poking through weathered fences,
surrounding rusted trucks.
Nibbled by thoroughbreds and dairy cows,
ubiquitous as scrap yards,
gas stations, dollar stores that line the highway.
Charwomen of the flower world,
no glamorous orchids that bloom in splendor
among tropical jungles,
not dinner-plate sized hibiscus
flashing every vibrant hue,
not hybrid roses
groomed to capture blue ribbons.
They do not bloom where they are planted,
but spring up wild, uncultivated.
Food for bee, nest for butterfly and mantis.
Working class flowers.
Speckled hens lay fat brown eggs
among their blooms;
catfish nudge mud banks in their shadow,
and lovers flatten them with blankets,
not noticing acrid crushed stem scent,
aware of nothing but each other.
for a blossom resembling a fried egg,
and black-eyed Susan, glamorous title
for a urine-colored daisy.
Mundane. Quotidian.
Poking through weathered fences,
surrounding rusted trucks.
Nibbled by thoroughbreds and dairy cows,
ubiquitous as scrap yards,
gas stations, dollar stores that line the highway.
Charwomen of the flower world,
no glamorous orchids that bloom in splendor
among tropical jungles,
not dinner-plate sized hibiscus
flashing every vibrant hue,
not hybrid roses
groomed to capture blue ribbons.
They do not bloom where they are planted,
but spring up wild, uncultivated.
Food for bee, nest for butterfly and mantis.
Working class flowers.
Speckled hens lay fat brown eggs
among their blooms;
catfish nudge mud banks in their shadow,
and lovers flatten them with blankets,
not noticing acrid crushed stem scent,
aware of nothing but each other.
Bio
Ann Howells edited Illya’s Honey for eighteen years. Her books include Under a Lone Star (Village Books, 2016), Cattlemen & Cadillacs, an anthology of D/FW poets she edited (Dallas Poets Community Press, 2016), So Long As We Speak Their Names (Kelsay Books, 2019), and Painting the Pinwheel Sky (Assure Press, 2020). Her four chapbooks include Black Crow in Flight, published through Main Street Rag’s 2007 competition and Softly Beating Wings which won the 2017 William D. Barney Competition (Blackbead Books). Ann’s work appears in Spillway, Little Patuxent Review, and The Langdon Review among others.