Poem by Ruth Hill: “She (Ode to a Roadside Weed)”

I love the wordplay and sound patterns in this charming poem by Winning Writers subscriber Ruth Hill. Listen to it on YouTube in this video from Writers Rising Up, a nonprofit that encourages environmental stewardship through the literary arts.

She
by Ruth Hill

She is hot pink,
so I say, “She..she…”
Come along with me, burgundy…organdy.
Flaring like a flame, flamenco flamingo.
Daring like a dame, demonic durango.
She is feather soft, plumes aplenty, boas flowing.
She daft on dunes, and bending,
she, leaning and gleaming.
Oh, how you catch the light!
you shimmering cocktail, Zinfandel infidel,
nubile Nubian, ruby Reuben.
Sunrise has kissed your silk-strung necklace
with dewdrops of amethyst mist.
Sunset bathed you, bronze and brazen in the breeze,
pivoting pirouette.
Blonde hair bouncing, sumptuous, voluptuous,
parking like an arcing rose, all bramble-scramble.
Side of the road hitchhiker, biker, femme fatale,
wish I could defer you
from preferring the disturbed at the curb.
Roping wild lopers, you, with your wild lasso.
Sowing your wild oats, barely barley,
wheedling your way in, under someone’s skin.
Look how you set the hook…
how you make the hound dogs howl!
They are afraid of you, so afraid,
into a braid or earwig surprise, demise;
but I have eyes for you, tenderize.
They mace you,
but you brace a trace they can’t erase,
then face the race, all vivid and livid.
I will miss you,
when nothing but your descendants remain.
No one can replace your lost grace.
She, Sheila, Sheba: Shalom, Salome, vamp by the ramp.
Silicon desiccant for butterflies, and others, when you fade:
flash o’ flesh, dreamy cream puff, fluff!
Wind lifts your sisters’ blue flax skirts: flirts!
Little ladyslippers loan you their yellow stilettos.
Ripening next to freckled bromegrass,
scarlet hairs on paintbrush,
carmen pistils on fuchsia fireweed,
little girl in bloomers: vixen,
foxtail fixin’.

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