Beside the dirt road
we find a whole bouquet’s worth
of purple penstemon,
pink wild roses, orange
globe mallow, and countless
yellow weeds. My daughter
picks them, a bride to joy,
and though there is thunder
it doesn’t rain, except for petals,
yellow sweet clover, that
she sprinkles along the dirt
to leave a trail behind us,
just in case we get lost, Mom.
she says. Sometimes love
seems to rise right out of the dirt
and damned if somehow
on that one-way road
I didn’t get wholly, beautifully,
heart breakingly lost.