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Lorraine A Padden

Tatter’d Weed

This late summer day, it’s time. The garden’s ready to shed curling edges of dwindled peach and pink, the gnarled and browning ropes of tired green. My nephew grabs the clippings and makes a face on the grass. He braids a toothy grin from twisted stems and a full set of pale yellow zinnia petals. He carefully auditions rosy cheeks and daisy earlobes, and settles for one of each. Adding a dash of washed-out delphinium hair, he smiles broadly and asks me what I think. I tell him it’s perfectly beautiful.

deadhead
the afterlife
of a pallid rose

Note: The title is taken from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 2.


About the Author

Lorraine A Padden is an accomplished poet whose honors include awards from Tricycle Magazine, the Haiku Society of America, the Bloodroot Haiku Competition, and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others. Upwelling, her first collection of haiku and related short-form poetry, was published by Red Moon Press in September 2022. lorrainepadden.com

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