![Photograph of an amaryllis plant by Virginia photographer John Kinney.](https://format.creatorcdn.com/cbb90e42-06bc-4761-95fc-16ff49150610/0/0/0/0,0,2421,3655,1600,3655/0-0-0/93a11b57-2ae1-4b58-a86b-89f8d61e3151/1/1/Amaryllis.jpg?fjkss=exp=2036672169~hmac=629efcb67037756fab35544339fd0e5be7c32b0a9822a37afaaccb4d51bc7822)
Amaryllis
By Connie Wanek
A flower needs to be this size
to conceal the winter window,
and this color, the red
of a Fiat with the top down,
to impress us, dull as we've grown.
Months ago the gigantic onion of a bulb
half above the soil
stuck out its green tongue
and slowly, day by day,
the flower itself entered our world,
closed, like hands that captured a moth,
then open, as eyes open,
and the amaryllis, seeing us,
was somehow undiscouraged.
It stands before us now
as we eat our soup;
you pour a little of your drinking water
into its saucer, and a few crumbs
of fragrant earth fall
onto the tabletop.
*Poem reprinted with permission by the author. Originally published in "Bonfire," New Rivers Press, 1997.