It was just a small pink flower
not everywhere like mayapples each spring
it liked the high dry pine ridges
poor soil, not the rich black loam
as many did, but with its shallow
flat white starburst roots
I could fill a waterbucket in a weekend
with little knee damage
from those rocky hills, and oh, how good
that warm oatmeal felt to my pride
and to nine small bellies on a frigid
school morning, for there’d likely be
no more food until next morning
and without milk if the store man
had once again reclaimed Old Spot
for oats/salt/pintos tab unpaid
It was just a small pink flower
looking for all the world like baby sister
vulvas I diapered so constantly—
moccasin flower grandpa said the real name
was, just a small pink flower
and we were so hungry all those 30s years
When our grown middle son set out
to help save the planet we searched
all up and down those slopes for me
to show him where they grew, and there
was not one small pink flower, instead
one heartsick daughter of mother earth
I, who since breaking with the scary
fundamentalists had felt nature
to be the truest word of God,
my own moccasins trailing blood
