Adder’s Tongue, Lily Family

—In Wildflowers Every Child Should Know by Stack and Weaver (1914)

 

The lilies pose chins down and serious

  for the photo. Even in black and white,

they loom off the page like prophets.

 

We named them for animals—

  leaves for the trout’s mottled side,

petals white and sharp as a hound’s

 

bared teeth, stamens like a snake’s

  testing tongue. They practically hiss.

 

I am not the only one to search them out.

  Someone wrote all around the photo,

a note for every rendezvous—

 

Sent a box of them to Joleen,

  one to Kenneth—1917, 1918, 1921

 

Then I turn the page on a real hello:

  a pressed adder’s tongue

on a stiff, ribbony stem.

 

The live thing dyed the paper

  deep yellow. Someone moved the leaf

once, years ago.

 

Now the print is like a mirrored face

  or a bird seen from below.

AZA PACE is the author of the poetry collection Her Terrible Splendor, which won the Emma Howell Rising Poet Prize from Willow Springs Books. Read more.

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Belladonna Lilies