Barbara Daniels

The Mimosa

Every hurricane season, I wonder
why I bought a house with no basement.
If I’d followed advice, I’d pluck

my eyebrows, quit picking at scabs.
I’d take the same pew week after week,
bow my head for penitential prayers.

I’d root out my obstinate weed tree,
(the mimosa), change filters, and
be, as Dad advised, inner directed.

I wouldn’t go out on my red bike,
clutch a handlebar with one hand,
wave cheerfully with the other.

A cock crows at the edge of town
where houses edge toward open fields.
Stop that sniveling, I tell myself.

My weed tree stubbornly sprouts
from its cut stump. I bought
an orange blaze vest, a warning

to hunters. But this heat says wait
the storm out, peel clothes off,
take shelter, drink pink lemonade.

Barbara Daniels lives in New Jersey. Her Talk to the Lioness is forthcoming from Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press.  Daniels’ poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Mid-American Review, and elsewhere. In 2020 she received her fourth fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.