✨ Late Blooming

the last amaryllis refuses...

Late Blooming

Mid-January and still
the last amaryllis refuses.
Planted in October,
it just now raises
a green bud tip
to the bright window. 
Inside the plain package
waits a blaring red,
the flower furled,
held like breath
in the trumpeter’s body.

—Francesca Bell

From What Small Sound, Red Hen Press, Copyright © 2023. Used by permission of The Permissions Company, LLC. Photo by Anirban Ghosh, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.