Amaryllis

By Connie Wanek

A flower needs to be this size

to conceal the winter window,

and this color, the red

of a Fiat with the top down,

to impress us, dull as we've grown.

Months ago the gigantic onion of a bulb

half above the soil

stuck out its green tongue

and slowly, day by day,

the flower itself entered our world,

closed, like hands that captured a moth,

then open, as eyes open,

and the amaryllis, seeing us,

was somehow undiscouraged.

It stands before us now

as we eat our soup;

you pour a little of your drinking water

into its saucer, and a few crumbs

of fragrant earth fall

onto the tabletop.

Copyright Credit: Reprinted from "Bonfire," New Rivers Press, 1997, by permission of the author. Copyright © 1997 by Connie Wanek. Her most recent book is "Hartley Field," from Holy Cow! Press.