ELIZABETH PIETRZAK

Six wildflowers

Begin with mountain rock hugging sun spurge.
Underground. Below the surface tension. Wolfsbane.
Devil’s jaw. The Inevitable safari sunset.
All too common. Mostly unsurprising. Blue dicks
nosing up through desert velvet
stuck between a clutch of pussy paws.

Dense pink cluster creeping pussy paws
pad pad pad onto bellies of sun spurge
in deep water, less turtle than desert velvet
jagged teeth or elongated clusters – monkshood
in moist wood, a broad tube, blue dicks
against the yellow and orange safari sunset.

Beyond. The afterglow of safari sunset
would surround a blazon of pussy paws.
Only thing in sight though are blue dicks.
Not even a sneeze of sun spurge
or a rabid pack of wolfsbane.
Desert velvet and desert tortoise lead the turtleback

after aster’s yellow-brown bristles at the tip. The turtleback
tugs desert ledges * velvet brown * safari sunset
seven * sepals * five * chants of monkshood
like a spirochete that radiates from center * clustered pussy paws
weed through hungry smiling sun spurge
like so much overspray. * * * Blue dicks

paw through the backyard, a slow up thrust, blue dicks
ride hard through summer months, but it’s the turtleback
held erect just above the leaves, but it’s the sun spurge
sleeping on sand or gravel desert flats, but it’s the safari sunset
that wakes at every dawn. But it’s the pussy paws
who know the truth about cats and dogs. Don’t eat the wolfsbane.

It’s what emerges from the unsheathed monkshood
stretched thin and translucent from another fist-full of blue dicks.
It’s what must possess every spread of pussy paws,
the rarest ghost orchid, or another unspoiled patch of desert velvet.
It’s what’s never erased by even the most remarkable safari sunset
but resurfaces again and again, like another invasive sun spurge.

Like algae, a little sun spurge blooms over every safari sunset
when the blue dicks and their gang of monkshood
descend upon another desert velvet and its pussy paws.