February Bloomer by Assra Sudde

It’s been raining and it hasn’t.

Rows of grasses

glow green,

glow with health so they look unnatural.

The glowing grass gives me a fright,

the only way to say

a long i of f up my spine.

I lock my bike, but

if someone really wants it

they can get it. Going inside,

two Camilla blooms,

gaudy and forlorn as Mme. Butterfly,

snag my eyes.

Camilla is a February bloomer,

the earliest bloomer, I hear myself

saying for the rest of my life.