Adventitious

offsets occurring in a most unusual place

Terese Svoboda

Twenty years earlier – 

Sure, it's yours, 

she said, as if I matched 

the so-unpromising plant,

twin leathery tongues

that could have been lumber ripped, 

plumped and gone green

top a green bulb.

For me, a single blonde spike

opened yearly.

Fifteen years later,

actual infants – offsets they're called – 

clone, as if from Zeus,

straight from the bulb. 

Surely the pot's too small.

But separated, both offsets

and mother pale and shrivel.

Panicked midwife,

I google and google,

upload photos to experts,

ghost plant among the ID-dense. 

A true friend crows

Haemanthus deformis,

a/k/a ugly blood flower, 

South African, prized for 

“extreme tolerance of neglect.”

Crowd them, she says.

Bee-beloved, “leaf margins chewed 

by snout beetles at night,”

enthusiasts of lean soil and sand,

they revive en famille.

When I travel, I award it 

to my son, but not to keep.

Best little watered,

I tell him, and crowded,

a syllogism for

tomorrow on earth – 

if earth be a plant.

He little waters it well.

Terese Svoboda's eighth book of poetry is Theatrix: Poetry Plays. Read more.