Prickmedainty Poetry

Road to Avon

O heart, lose not thy nature

—Shakespeare

I was supposed to be a horticulturist

I collected plant names

Like the sky keeps constellations:

Star Tulip, Calochortus elegans,

Stargazer lily, Lilium orientalis—

Each syllable slid sidereal off my tongue.

I could've been content with such

Stelliferous strings of floral words.

My father couldn't care less

For the anatomy of dahlia or dandelion

He wanted me to be a business major

I changed my mind in the first week

Of college, penning the fatal contract:

I would follow the Bard of Avon!

But it was Anandi who first led me

Back to the path of ink foliations

She picked up a quill I meant to lose—

Neither of us had shared stories since

Mrs. Sparks's creative writing class

In American Fork Junior high,

But with just one sentence, this girl

With eyes like moon-bright saucers

Unsealed the syllables at my core

Anandi saw characters where I pretended

There were no silhouettes shining.

But dare I let my epics blot a page?

I couldn't say until she held out

A silver bowl of popcorn.

"This," Anandi whispered,

"is better than a movie!"

I became a writer that hour

With the kernels caught in my teeth.

*Shakespeare was known as the Bard of Avon, hence,  I wish to follow after the writer's footsteps.