In Your Own Words: ‘Summer Afternoon in the Pod’

Those of us writing through Dave Malone’s Tornado Drill for my 3-week course In Your Own Words are sharing poems.

Here’s my pandemic poem for session 11. What I remember most about those early days of quarantine was that we had the best wildflowers in ten years.

Lent 2020

We walked every night that spring,
visited with neighbors from six feet of safety.

The bluebonnets were the best in ten years.
Every yard anticipated Easter and normalcy.

Back then we wouldn’t dream to pluck a perfect
lupine and risk a fine or at least a frown.

But this one flower, crushed beside the curb—
all’s fair in love and in, well,
I guess, right now.

–Megan Willome