Mimosa--By Barbara Robinette--United States

Mimosa

Oh mimosa sumosa cover her safe,

green ferny leaves, soft coral blossoms of a feathery

South.  Backwoods grandma city’s mama rock on

the back porch.  They watch the men in the dirt yard

look under the truck’s hood.  They sip iced tea from jars

that jiggle on a wobbly bent little table as all the kids

run down the porch, then jump off as pirates to the loose

dust under the mimosa.  The girl picks a mimosa blossom

holds it to her hair…princess of the pirates…mimosa,

mimosa…in your warm Southern shade,

she laughs and curtsies there.

(First published in 2008 by Iconoclast  #100)

Barbara Robinette is the author of two books of poems, Plain and Sea Leafs By Moon.  A third book is forthcoming. Several of her poems have appeared in print and on-line.  She has written poems, off and on, since President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 when someone read “Oh Captain, My Captain” during the funeral procession.  She thinks poetry is for everyday, working people and keeps that audience in mind when writing her poems.