This Is Not a Poem About my Dead Dog

by Emry Trantham

This is a poem about four daffodils,

plucked from the yard late in season.

Yellow, though no longer the hue

of fresh butter, nor a bee’s pollen-

powdered basket. Softer, like

the pages of my grandmother’s

pound cake recipe, or dried pine 

kindling in a pail by the stove. 

Like the stained satin of a folded gown, 

long locked in an attic corner,

stories above the spring’s stretched 

hours, above the aforementioned

daffodils. They were there, by the fence: 

bowed, tired, waiting to be tucked

by his thin, still chest.