How like a daisy. How like a cone flower, except without the hump. How like a sunflower, except smaller. In the short days of winter, it slept snug under a peaty bit of rug by the back doors in every herb garden. In the long days of summer, it rose like the sun, part spun gold, part saffron. Feeling warm and lazy as the days, I watched it grow. Tried to imagine what kind of cup or bowl or chalice, even, that I could arrange its long, rangy stalks within to keep the blooms light and upright. I searched the cupboards in vain, knowing the bouquet like so many promises would not remain.
Deborah H. Doolittle has lived in lots of different places, but now calls North Carolina home. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the author of Floribunda (Main Street Rag) and three chapbooks, No Crazy Notions (Birch Brook Press), That Echo (Longleaf Press), and Bogbound (Orchard Street Press). She shares a home with her husband, four housecats, and a backyard full of birds.
