My Unnamed Azalea Bush

Someday I won’t be living in my 

orange chalk now dust blue house 

with its dead fish pond and its 

yellow grass yard and its 

graveyard of ceramics by the pool.

But, where I first saw a graveyard

my mother saw a blooming garden.

She discarded the dead that were left, 

filled the empty clay caskets with 

basil and peppers and tomatoes and rosemary. 

Now, she’ll pluck a sage leaf from the stem,

roll it in her fingertips,

inhale and exhale and

sigh into its sunshine scent.

She brings the oils up to my nose and says,

Smell that? Isn’t it

beautiful?

A boy gave me a bush of azaleas, 

baby pink buds that looked 

so brilliant 

in the pictures he took of me with my 

rosy cheeks and 

pink fingertips. 

I miss being that bright, heart full of 

roses and spring swells. 

I brought those blush buds up to my nose.

I sighed and thought,

How beautiful?

Now, my mother sits out by the pool,

short gray hair pinned into a knot.

Sweat glistening on her forehead,

sore feet wading in the crystal blue water. 

She holds a leaking watering can in her hands

the water gushes out in uneven bursts over

Davie and Limoncello and Alfredo and 

What’s her name again?

Betty Lou mama.

and Betty Lou. 

My mother took the bush and placed her in a gray planting pot, 

dark dirt worn into its curves and cracks. 

And what’s her name? my mother asks.

She doesn’t have a name. I just call her Azalea.

My mother cut off the 

baby pink buds and

I thought my azalea bush was dying, 

but my mother assured me, she said 

I took them off so it could focus on 

growing roots, 

not blooming flowers 

Pretty bright things don’t care about 

     survival,

  pretty bright things won’t keep me alive, 

but I long for them anyway.