Sword Lily
        Gladiolus grandiflorus

We come to love our difficulties
and our complications
most of all for having made
necessary whatever little frill

or damned ingenious adaptation we
display. Shapes so minutely, lavishly
symmetrical they seem to stand
for some sublime invisible

philosophy. Color beyond
what anyone could claim
was necessary; extravagant
stories where bare facts should suffice.

It is the finely wrought
detail that captivates us; not
the thing you’ve said, but how you’ve said it.
Red flag, little sword, the leaf blade cruciform

in section, showy
spikes secund, one-sided. The bisexual
flowers in all their aureate
magnificence, luxuriant

yardages of a richly colored silk
fabric, the filiform
styles held out like bowls,
like spoons—just begging for it

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Copyright © 2014 Amy Glynn Greacen All rights reserved
from Southern Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission