I can explain this familial trait, our depression
era mentality: everything must earn its keep.
Beauty for the sake of beauty? Selfish. Frivolous.
The women who raised me were plain. Devout.
Called whores if they rouged their cheeks
or wore sassy pumps or failed to smile
when poked. These women were good
soldiers. They carried babies, mortgages,
the precious porcelain of their men’s egos.
Little, I watched them garden. Pinched my nose
while they worked manure into the soil, their hands
thick and sticky with stink. I realize now
the beds they tended—purely selfish. Tulips, lilies &
daffodils—beauty for the sake of beauty, innocent
as Easter bonnets worn once, then packed away.
Now I am as old as they must have been. & I am
teaching myself to grow things. The rosebush
I water with manure tea blooms late
every spring, produces one glorious flower, its ruffles
Lady Danger red, its center wedding dress white.
Quiet mornings I plant my knees in the still-wet
ground, watch her solitary stem sway in the Kansas
wind. I like knowing she’ll rebloom blind to everything
but her own fire & ice, eagerly alive in the Tickseed
sunrise until her last, shriveled petals slip away,
unashamed by who sees her spent & strewed
atop this still-solid ground.
Lisa Allen’s work has appeared in several print and online journals as well as three anthologies. She holds MFAs in Creative Nonfiction and Poetry, both from The Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program, where she was a Michael Steinberg Fellow. She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is a co-founder, with Rebecca Connors, of the virtual creative space The Notebooks Collective, as well as a founding co-editor of the anthology series Maximum Tilt.
Photo by ZHANQUN CAI from Pexels