Poets’ Corner: Feela for Valentine’s Day

10 Feb Poets’ Corner: Feela for Valentine’s Day

According to a Floral Trends Tracking Study, Valentine’s Day is the number one holiday for florists, accounting for most of the industry’s fresh flower sales. Seventy-eight percent of the flowers consumers purchase for Valentine’s Day are cut flowers, with men being top customers, many buying long-stemmed roses for a wife or significant other. But some, like poet David Feela, prefer a wild alternative, abundant in the rocky southwest.

Amaryllis

Snow drifts against the picket fence,

icicles won’t leave the eaves,

but the amaryllis shows up

in a cardboard box from Virginia

as if riding in its own suitcase,

soil spilling onto the porch

even before the carton gets opened.

It wants to get started.

It requires a south-facing window.

It asks for a drink.

Everything about amaryllis

feels pink, like lingerie

in a basket, painted fingernails,

glossy magazines.

I blush to think

what blossoms it will bring.

Editor’s note: Regular TIO contributor David Feela is a retired teacher, poet, free-lance writer, and workshop instructor. His writing has appeared in hundreds of regional and national publications since 1974, including High Country News, Mountain Gazette, Denver Post, Utne Reader, Yankee, Third Wednesday, and Pennsylvania Review, as well as in over a dozen anthologies