Matins for the Last Frost
       

Patient in their dark hibernacle
wait the twinned lobes of the tulip bulb
hanging like a semicolon
in the endless sentence of winter;
not yet the green shaft rips the paper tunic
in its upward thrust, not yet knifes its tip
through the topsoil, the stalk aspiring
up to a swelling of petals, pale
bud pursed and then loosened, deepening
to red and unsealing itself sash by sash,
a leggy dishabille in lipstick.
Somewhere on the other side of town
some bells begin to raise their brazen;
everything is about to change—

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Copyright © 2014 Kimberly Johnson All rights reserved
from Uncommon Prayer
Persea Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission