For my wife
Confusion of that Georgia January—
tornadoes, temps in the sweaty seventies
then the raw forties—
I’d walk up the drive, shift and roar
of morning school bus fading behind me,
wind lifting me up the hill
through rain-flat leaves, thatch of stalks
toward the too-small house.
The first bulbs I planted, ever,
too early, half-visible underfoot,
daffodil tips sliding up through mulch.
Don’t you think that we’ll be here
next year, tender raging
perennial?
_
Jennifer Hyde Dracos-Tice (she/her) has poems published or forthcoming in Witness, Psaltery & Lyre, Crab Orchard Review, Whale Road Review, Still: The Journal (2016 Judge’s Award), Literary Mama, and elsewhere. A long-time high school teacher with literature degrees from Brown and Indiana-Bloomington, she currently lives with her wife in Florida.
© 2023, Jennifer Hyde Dracos-Tice
Halfway Down the Stairs 