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Shame Ol’ Lady

Mimosa Pudica: St. Mary Parish, Jamaica
 
Sensitive plant, (Mimosa pudica), also called humble plant, plant in the pea family (Fabaceae) that responds to touch and other stimulation by rapidly closing its leaves and drooping.
--Encyclopaedia Britannica
​


Never takes much,
 
a fingertip’s touch, or    
            beak-brush of prey-
                        probing bird,
 
to trigger
            survival’s minutest
                        nerves: to elicit such


cringe, and colorless blush
            by which she
                         makes of herself


a sheltering purse
             of frills folding in
                          on its prickle-


downed seam, her
            prayer so thin
                        as to be silent, though seen.

Sub-equatorial native
            pantropical now,
                        how this country


does christen you--
            Shame Ol’ Lady.
                        Hereafter


the finical fronds
                re-emerge, a fillet
                        of fine green tines:
 
and what slim heed
            take the reverent,
                        O Lady
 
as prayer
            makes its clasp
                        on this next hour only.


​Poem of the Week @ Narrative Magazine 
https://www.narrativemagazine.com/issues/poems-week-2019-2020/poem-week/shame-ol-lady-jerome-ellison-murphy
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