webb2

M a r k   L e e   W e b b

There Are No Hyacinths

Jasmines, or Marguerites here. 

All we have on our floor 

is a woman with a bloodroot.

She’s an icy white bloom 

that prevailed a season ago,

attracting impatient suitors

winter stragglers—

blossom beetles and cold-clumsy 

bumblebees. Her chart says late 

last spring she was picked 

up in a bar, then dropped 

hard. That’s why she bruises 

so easily, why she sometimes 

bleeds an orange-red sap, a tacky 

crimson that sticks to everything.

           (From a story in the New York Times) 

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