The National Poetry Review
Laura Sobbott Ross
AMARYLLIS
We readied the bulbs in the days before
the baby arrived. Full solstice moon
nudging what was curled inside its own
winter sleep; every bulb, nested & rooting.
Miraculous, the way green startled
out, ribboned toward the light—
light that was a new dominion
lording across a tracery of capillaries,
not to mention, eyelashes, flutter of breath,
the fusing of the soft crown of bone.
I’m talking about the baby, of course,
whose wails shuddered open from her
newly dredged lungs, while amaryllis
pushed and pushed its flame points skyward
till they fell over on their new, floppy necks
into the full-throated red of bell-shaped blossoms.
LAURA SOBBOTT ROSS has worked as a teacher and a writing coach for Lake County Schools in Central Florida and was named as Lake County’s first poet laureate. Her poetry appears in many journals, including Meridian, 32 Poems, and The Florida Review. She was a finalist for the Art & Letters Poetry Prize and won the Southern Humanities Auburn Witness Poetry Prize. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks and three full-length poetry books.
The National Poetry Review 