Muriel Nelson: Hope Is the Thing with Petals

With long nights, thick clouds, and everyone 

wearing black to look thin, 

now my commute in the rain 

is stopped at a crosswalk. Still. 

Stopped for a tiny black pencil 

of a woman pushing her cart of belongings 

(its plastic bag black, too) slowly so slowly 

but with such dignity that I will 

her safely across four lanes and marvel 

at the march of her high heels, her straight back, 

her nodding black top hat, tall 

as a magician’s and adorned like a queen’s 

by a frill of tulle, rain beads, tinsel 

and one full-blown daffodil.