The crocus, first in my yard to bloom, purple
with tiny orange kernel—blossom within blossom.
Ground saturated from a foot of snow three weeks ago.
Now, magnolia—white feathered with pink stripes;
furry gray-green sepal they open from; the way sun filters
through slim petals. Spring’s early yellows: witch hazel,
forsythia, daffodils, meadow buttercups. Air fertile, dense
with pollen and birdsong. Trails, a mudfest. Yesterday, on the first
anniversary of my mother’s passing, I find three socks fallen
in the narrow space between washer and stationary tub. Two mine,
lost a year or more, the other a white anklet, my mother’s name,
Vivian, printed in permanent black ink when she moved
to a nursing home. Bone-white, so soft in my palm—a dove.
March 16, 2021
Karen George is author of three poetry collections from Dos Madres Press: Swim Your Way Back (2014), A Map and One Year (2018), and Where Wind Tastes Like Pears (2021). She won Slippery Elm’s Poetry Contest in 2022, and her short story collection, How We Fracture, which won the Rosemary Daniell Fiction Prize, is forthcoming from Minerva Rising Press in January 2024. Her work appears in Adirondack Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Cultural Daily, Salamander, and Poet Lore. Her website is: https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/.