ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Natalie Solmer is a florist and an adjunct English instructor living in Indianapolis with her two young sons. She has been published in journals such as Willow Springs, The Fem, Tinderbox, The Louisville Review, and forthcoming from Cimarron Review.
Also by Natalie Solmer:
Bathtubs I Have Rented
Getting Mary Out of the Way
All Day I'm Glued To This World
Floral Lady: Winter
What a hot cardinal
I've stuck in white mums: my snow.
It's easy to assemble red,
erase the other colors of fall.
I, queen of cuts, of my gray hood,
am finding the royal angles
to slice away thorn and stem,
to innovate with gold-dust.
Though what we love
will never bloom again
when kept indoors.
Oh, best rose breeder,
I am only fit for a snip
off of your plastic bouquet-
sleeve skirts. I inhabit the drops
of white poinsettia sap that stick
and stain the rags of my soul.
Give me all your succulent
and your celebratory owl.
Teach me to gild my basket,
my every azalea. Tell me their
fortune. Tell me their price.
At the grocery store where I have worked as a florist for 13 years, we get these trade publications, and "Floral Lady: Winter" was inspired by one such publication. I spent a lunch break jotting down interesting language and phrases and then rearranged and reworked them (but also added language), so I suppose it is somewhat a 'found' poem. However, I have spent years trying to write the perfect "Floral Lady" poem which communicates the other-worldliness and everyday-ness of my work (as well as hints at my human dramas) in the grocery store, and I have a whole series of them … however, I was especially pleased with how this one came out!
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
