Flowering Room

In the lounge your angles
were acute and wrong.
You bent too slowly
towards the slivers of light
you could steal early morning
if I left the curtains wide.

On the fridge you learnt
stretches and poses,
salutes to the sun
which rose and rose
unobstructed and sure
until early afternoon.

When the Venetian blind
crashed down one evening,
its slats and strings so tangled
and dinners upon dinners
layered sticky on its once-white,
I propped it in the laundry

and you offered up
a strange bright lily
from your warm-damp soil
and butterflying leaves.

Saradha Koirala is a Wellington-based poet and English teacher.  This lovely  poem comes from her collection Wit of the Staircase, published by Steele Roberts in 2009.  The poem reminds me of a cactus I’ve had for decades, which has only flowered once – in a sunroom in Mt Vic.  But it also makes me think of other types of blossoming – how anyone might flower in the right conditions.

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