MARIGOLDS

by madeleine french

if yellow were a scent

it would be this top note of sunshine

the first to fade heart note something like basil

base note clover, or cedar I forget how I learned this and I couldn’t say why some random facts

took root still, it’s all my fault:

these amber blooms

were right here crinkly-velvety soft

waiting to share their secrets if I’d only stopped

to breathe them in

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Madeleine French tumbled into love with books as a young girl, and never looked back. You may find her in front of a sewing machine, behind a copy of Persuasion, or occasionally on Twitter, @maddiethinks. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetica Review, Paddler Press, Words & Whispers, Hidden Peak Press, West Trade Review, and elsewhere. She and her husband live in Florida and Virginia.