Issue 27 | Winter 2021

Daffodils

The spring day when after the dark subway

the light was blinding and the last of the snow

melted, trickling into the gutters, but still

there was the scent of fresh snow.

Work was over at last and there

wasn’t a thought of tomorrow.

There were flowers like lit candles

on the corner near Old South Church

and just enough money for daffodils

that came dripping from the bucket,

daffodils carried home to our room.

where we sat without having to talk.

And I became part of the sun-struck

halo, the snow-washed high windows,

the silvery mirror, voices rising

from the street, walls saturated

with ghost music, passengers peering

from train windows and those arriving

to vanish in the distant Back Bay streets.

Filed under: Poetry

Miriam Levine is the author of Saving Daylight, her fifth collection of poetry. Another collection, The Dark Opens, was chosen by Mark Doty for the Autumn House Poetry Prize. Other books include Devotion, a memoir, and In Paterson, a novel. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, and Ploughshares. Levine, a fellow of the NEA and a grantee of the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, lives in Florida and New Hampshire. For more information about her work, please go to miriamlevine.com.