Poinsettia

I stumbled on you gangling and wild

red petals an explosion tall as the tumbled house

on the banks of the wild-watered river that broke

open over ages the Barrancas de Cobre

I almost didn’t recognize you

without rills of red foil

or the snapping air I now know kills you

I prefer you this way: as wood as weed

unpretty, unpetite your muscular sprawl

casting a net of shadow on the waters

What you catch is dream is doorway

is each of us grown to our most unruly

You bend to no purpose but your own flourishing

Open up Open up The dynamite

I could become is knocking

Mary has dark glasses and curly brown and gray hair. She squints and smiles at the camera with a lush green background.

Mary Fontana split her formative years between the high deserts of central Washington and west Texas, then trained as a malaria immunologist in the San Francisco Bay Area before settling in Seattle. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, the Seneca Review, the Seattle Review, SWWIM Everyday, Moss, and elsewhere. Instagram: @maryfontanawrites