For the Texas Poppy Mallow
Jehanne Dubrow
| poetry
Endangered flower, when I learn
you open like a wine cup and wait
eight days for the pollinating bee
to wallow in your bowl, bellied against you,
its furred body drunk with dust,
and as it finally leaves your deep
magenta light, you shut for good,
when I learn of your ritual of endurance
in these ever-smaller plains, I think
of the friend who seemed extinct
in her disappearance from my life, how rare
that species of knowing someone else.
She should have heard your story.
She could have learned from you
nothing is more dangerous than
these early minutes in the morning.
We must cluster together in the sands.
The places some of us belong
have narrowed to a rivulet. Endangered
flower, your name means beautiful stream.
Your name means roughened
to the touch. And don’t I grieve
beside the river of your name.
Jehanne Dubrow is the author of three books of nonfiction and ten poetry collections, including most recently Civilians (Louisiana State University Press, 2025). She has also published a craft book, The Wounded Line: A Guide to Writing Poems of Trauma (University of New Mexico Press, 2025). She is a Distinguished Research Professor and a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of North Texas.