FOR THE BLACK-BEARDED IRIS (L. CROATICA)

All slim stalked flounce and ruffle opening
wide your lavish tongues. Blossom lasting
less than a day, bearing news of grief
for some or what comes after – what some
call hope linked with a different morning,
with another bloom that will go the way of.
Like the soft skin under the eye, the lid,
tip caressed. Stain of berry, the ink
we used to write letters, the well spilled.
Never fading like those lines so difficult
to decipher now – those words of love
or something akin.

Kelly R. Samuels is a Best of the Net and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. She is the author of Words Some of Us Rarely Use (Unsolicited) and Zeena/Zenobia Speaks (Finishing Line). Her poems have recently appeared in RHINO, Cold Mountain Review, DMQ Review, The Pinch, and Quiddity. She lives in the Upper Midwest.