Cornflower blind

Orphaned, I am in your garden
as he busies in your no-more home
adding up your no-more life.

They’re blue, Mum,
vibrant, subtle shimmering mob crowding the
circle your indecision left barren. 

Dense sapphire with a hint of lilac
in this unlikely desert-feeling heat,
they lollop thirstily, happily.

More me than you, deliberately,
a flouncy girl still trying
to capture your heart.

The man doesn’t see them.
Dictating dimensions, charting chattels,
he is cornflower blind too.

A previous iteration of this poem was first published in IceFloe Press.

Despite working as a therapist, nothing prepared Samantha Smith for the trauma caused by both of her parents dying during the recent COVID-19 lockdown. Passionate about the power of poetry, she wrote to “earth her heart” as she nursed… and lost them. Samantha is only just beginning to share her poems. Her work has recently been published by Ice Floe Press and featured by Safe and Sound Press. She lives and works in Hampshire, England.

Artwork by Garreth Chan