blue flower

by

Kathleen Hellen

 

               —"No one really dreams any longer of the Blue Flower." Walter Benjamin

 

I arranged them in an empty jar
to dress the kitchen table.
Small blooms I spotted on the brink
of asphalt, between the pointless
brick that guttered dens
of Fireballs, tossed-
out burger wrappers.
A pretty weed to feed the need
in us when beans ran out of cans
and we fought, nothing
in the cupboard but
a jar of peanut butter
to tide us over
till we got enough
to shop the Safeway.
A little blue we ravished
with our eyes like spoons
when we were young
and always hungry.

Kathleen Hellen is the recipient of the James Still Award, the Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred, and prizes from the H.O.W. journal and Washington Square Review. Her debut collection Umberto’s Night won the poetry prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House. Featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, Hellen’s work has been nominated multiple times for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and recently, Best American Short Stories. She is the author of The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin, Meet Me at the Bottom, and two chapbooks.