Alas

(Hyacinthoides non-scripta)

weeks without a passing
cloud, and now the forecast
week of rain. The ruff
collar leaves of the bluebell
nod in appreciation.

Was what I had in mind: tapping on the roof
of the orangery, the crow and his grave yard
call for anyone who’d listen, and a phone
ringing I hoped was not for me; typing a little
first draft, too brief to be anything but content
with itself: movement and colour, oblique
references to death, and allusions to scents:
of warm rain on the earth, and the bluebell;
carpeting

About the Author

Neil Flatman is an alum of the Tin House summer workshop and The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. He’s been published in, or has poems forthcoming in (among others), Bombay Gin, Ithaca Lit, palette Poetry and The Paragon Press. His poem ‘Objectify’ was included in the anthology ‘Written Here’