Midsummer Bloom

Published under Lynn Riley in Mirror New's "Through Our Looking Glass"

Watching the awkward, gangly
mess of weeds growing in the mirror.
They told me it would bloom in spring,
And I waited…
The neighborhood boys spit on it,
Sometimes they would grab its vines
And rip it down from the lattices
Reluctant, obstinate weed…
Still lingering in the sun.

Watching, dismayed…
The slow, steady summer days turning.
Hanging high as the sun shone down
And I waited…
The local girls despised the weed for
Sharing the sun with annual and perennial blooms.
The tore at its roots to plant their own
Ripping apart and manipulating its vines
to make crowns.

Watching blindly, as the
Buds began to bloom
in the midsummer heat
And I waited…
The boys and girls looked on astonished.
Ignorant to the new wave of the stares and snickers,
because the girls spit on it, the boys despised it.
Never noticing the staggering change
of full bloom in the mirror.