One of the things I miss the most from before the pandemic is Saturday morning writing dates with my friends at Panera. One person I used to meet there pretty often is Melissa Huckabay, who is wonderful and kind and capable.

Please enjoy this excellent poem of hers tonight.

Pink Evening Primrose, or Buttercup as My Mom Called It

Sometimes called the pink lady, twirling her skirts, “showy,”
morning canary dust that leaves sprinkles on your collar and
pollen-dots on your curious nose as you inhale and sneeze,

as you and your sisters run through the backcountry,
dirt smeared on your hands and face, leaving the house
while the sun is high, coming back when it sinks in the grass,

your bare feet on the concrete porch, cold, just as the primrose
opens its pollen-eyes to the twilight’s jazzy, steady hums,
flirt-petals springing wide like a girl’s gangly arms,

the days will soon shorten, the evening buttercup grows,
spreading like tangled hair on the ground, digging fingers
into earth, showy blooms that know their place.

***

Melissa Huckabay is a second-year MFA candidate in poetry at Texas State University. Her work has appeared in Poetry South, Defunkt, and elsewhere, and her short fiction won the Spider’s Web Flash Fiction Prize from Spider Road Press in 2019. She lives in Central Texas with her husband, son, and two affectionate cats.