Aztec Love Song for Uprooted Flowers
I carry them to your house on my back,
uprooted flowers.
I am bent double with the weight of them,
of women torn from the soil, their roots mud
stem and sepal crushed
I carry them. I carry their scent, the scent of ash
and blood in my blood.
Bent double with the weight of their fragility,
buds unopened, roses full-blown
discarded, trampled on
I carry them.
Their flower faces sit: geranium,
harebell, meadow-sweet,
in my classroom in this prison,
foliage fluttering in the breeze
from the barely open window
I carry the leaf of them,
bent double with the weight
of what we do to them,
how we punish and incarcerate
condemn to iron fallen blossom, uprooted
flowers I carry them
on my back, to your house.
Avril Joy is currently writing a sequence of poems about her time working in a women’s prison. One of these ‘prison’ poems, Skomm, won the 2019 York Mix poetry competition. Find out more at www.avriljoy.com