Standing in a row, paralleling
the blacktop road (hot and
sticky for summer bare feet),
four of them screening
in pink and green, enticing
the child’s fingers to pinch
the buds to pop the flower
open. No one minded; she’d
watch from the window
remembering the five-year-old
girl walking home
from the cotton mill
and picking the crepe myrtle
buds to pop them open.
This poem is submitted for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. The links will be live at 2 p.n. Central time today.
Thanks to Nancy Rosback at A Little Somethin’ for suggesting a series of poems on growing up in the South.
