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.

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