HOME / poem: A weekly poem, read by the author.

A Tulip in Winter(for Janice Fitzpatrick)

By Sherod SantosPosted Thursday, Dec. 4, 1997, at 3:30 AM ET

Your out-of-season hospital tulip still
brightens above its parti-colored foil.

Lacquered in lamplight, its fleshy leafage
could, conceivably, survive this way

a hundred days. A hundred days (imagine
that) to paint out the wallpaper harlequins,

uncane your cane-back rocking chair,
to reclaim your green connection to a place

where flowers such as these are grown
to leave the living less impossibly alone.

Print This ArticlePRINTEmail to a FriendE-MAILShare This ArticleRECOMMEND...Get Slate RSS FeedsRSS
Sherod Santos is the author of three books of poetry, most recently The City of Women. A fourth, The Pilot Star Elegies, is forthcoming in fall 1998.
What did you think of this article?
Join The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
TODAY'S PICTURES
TODAY'S CARTOONS
TODAY'S DOONESBURY
TODAY'S VIDEO
Costume parties.53/TP.jpg
Cartoonists' take on government spending.23/TC.jpg
More TK. 1/122939/2183724/DoonesburyPlaceholder.jpg