A poem for Wednesday

Scarlet stigma, thin
as a wish fingers

plucked
from the flushed

iris salt and sugar
ground to dust

and rosewater bloomed
to molten gold

in the marble
crucible

my hand, limp
from the pestle, spilled

over the words,
soaking the page with fragrant saffron—

one more failure,
the instructions

dyed to the letter.
But that’s no matter.

Let it—planted and plucked,
like us, in other fields,

and like us worn by salt
and sweetness to what is—

gild the day’s last page,
which even now (too soon)

one stained finger turns
beyond the stony lip …

QOSHE - Saffron - Armen Davoudian
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Saffron

9 1
06.03.2024

A poem for Wednesday

Scarlet stigma, thin
as a wish fingers

plucked
from the flushed

iris salt and sugar
ground to dust

and rosewater........

© The Atlantic

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