- Shawn Nacona Stroud
Angelica

Angelica
How can you love me if you all want
something different? I’ve tried
so hard to please you, each spring
dressing in the finest lace of my blooms
until your fields are gowned in white. Radiating
the sweetest perfume nature can produce.
Even still, occasionally, you’ll trample
right through me as I sway mindlessly
in the warm June breeze.
I am not the regal rose of the garden
or the varied colored tulip everyone stops
to adore. Nor that pink whore azalea
one can buy at any store. Yet,
I’ll not implore you to notice
my various natural beauties, to stop
your abuses and indifference toward me.
Each spring pollinating, I hold power over you, and I
relish when bees attentively tickle
all of my lovely petals.
—Shawn Nacona Stroud
This poem previously appeared in the May 2017 issue of Scarlett Leaf Review.