Marc Tretin’s most recent poem to appear here was “Anniversary” (February 2019). 

Zipporah Addresses the Blossoms, Whose Music She Cannot Sing, But Moved Her to Make a Wig for Her Bald Mother
By Marc Tretin

You, wisteria, posies, and roses,
when rain washed Mom’s cell phone from the compost heap
and I saw her with a naked man in sexy poses
we know it’s because alopecia makes her weep
that she’s not a woman, if a woman without hair.
You made me wrap your blossoms around twigs;
You told me this would show her that I care,
If I added a flowery hairpiece to her wigs.
I picked the dandelions growing wild next door
and the begonia that was started from a seed.
She said, “You made this for me. What for?”
I put it on her, pushed it down, then sticks made her bleed.
She cried, she yelled, “Crap! Thistles! Some damn lawn’s
chickweed prickles. You made me a crown of thorns!”