Perfection - Bev Fesharaki

The thrift shop is packed with treasures

and I spy the Easter lilies… flat in a basket

on the glass top of a lighted cabinet.

They’ve been there for days, still

looking dew kissed, shivering white,

real, but for their lack of fragrance

or flaw.

Dare I touch one? Thick fingers

on silky surfaces leave traces

of tears, the wistful tears

for a perfect mother who no longer

wants flowers.

A polished mother who

used to nurture fragile pansies,

now declines scattered tulip petals.

Tulip petals, lipstick red,

would clutter her floor and her mind.

My mother, a mother who weeded

her garden in Sunday clothes,

breathless at the hint

of the first crocus, at the sight

of her roses’ resurrection,

now rejects the flourishing freesia.

But, the perfect Easter lilies,

in shimmering silk, bloom forever young,

flawless, fragrance free, phony.

This new mother will love them.

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Bev Fesharaki is an educator/poet who works with young poets to get and give inspiration. Her work has been published in a number of journals including Bangalore Review, MORIA, and Vermillion and in an anthology, “Women Writing: On The Edge of Dark and Light.” She lives and writes by the water in Mukilteo, Washington.