Hazel

Nancy Zafris

I saw her at a party where no
one was having fun except her.
It was a celebration of profits
and the long hours of billable work.
We were told to bring spouses and
friends.

The feathers and beads and trinkets
woven into the feral tresses arrayed
her face in unisexual charm, hiding
good skin or bad, beauty a smeared
notion that cleared something up for
me.

I had you pegged for years.
You with the wild catkins
performing sans gêne in yellow
clusters, such an unsuitable
showoff among maples and
handsome oaks like breast
implants on the first lady
president. But I kind of now
see the point you’re making,
you, the happiest of all
trees.

Nancy Zafris is the series editor of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her collection of short stories, The Home Jar, was published in 2012 by Switchgrass Books.

“Hazel” appears in our Summer 2013 issue.