The snow has finally left us—the last bit of it melted into a puddle at the top of the driveway. Foraging robins scatter across the brownish-yellow grass which reveals treasures, like the dog’s favorite ball and a pair of your daughter’s socks—likely stripped off on fall’s last warm day.
You follow the dog through the yard into the woods, exploring the damp, mossy quiet while she investigates all the smells of spring. Then it catches your eye—a lone red flower with egg yolk anthers vibrant against so much brown.
Your heart pings, finally able to believe a new season has won. You pinch its stem at the base—bring it and the dog back inside where you fill a small cream pitcher with water to display your prize, your proof.
By dinner time your husband and children bring life to the kitchen, soon asking What is that awful smell? It doesn’t take long to link it to your flower. They begin quoting Google: Its signature scent is rotting meat! and When you pick the flower it kills the plant!
They carry on, scolding you and laughing and before long the kitchen is quiet again. You move the pitcher out to the deck railing, conduct a search of your own—learn the flower produces just one seed, relying on ants to find and bury its solitary offering.
Through the twilight wet grass you carry your hope back to the woods— turn over the soil and return it to the earth. As the darkness spills around you—the evening’s chill is a stark reminder that winter isn’t quite finished with you yet.
Amy Allen has been published in a variety of literary journals including Pine Row Press, West Trade Review, and The Write Launch, and her poetry chapbook, Mountain Offerings, was released in April of 2024. She lives in Shelburne, Vermont, with her husband and children, as well as a fiercely independent husky and a perpetually starving chocolate lab. She owns All of the Write Words, a freelance writing/editing business and serves as her town’s Poet Laureate, a position that includes outreach work with local schools and organizations.
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