One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Lot: Vacant, Not

Danielle Eleanor Lavalle

Let me pick you a bouquet,

cracked-asphalt-flowers — who do not know that they are garbage:

Blue violet Chicory, straight, straight, straight,

reaching for a Mediterranean sun that isn’t here

Daisies at last,

in neat clumps — safe from the weedwhacker

Hawkweed splaying wildly — used to being called ‘skinny dandelion’

Mischievous Asters (too early)

awaiting autumn to explode between the fences and towers of Goldenrod

petals like fraying thread:

deep purple,

stained barely pink,

yellow,

white

Wild Bergamot, unexpected,

daring you to call it ‘sparse thistle’,

almost fuchsia frilled tendrils embracing the

bouncing in

and bouncing out

of eager bees

A single raspberry coloured Poppy, that planted itself

on the margins of cement border and sidewalk

No flower

— that grows in a used-up-poisoned-discarded space —

is garbage

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Write After: National Poetry Month with One Poem Only

Write After is a way to encourage poets to listen and write, and use National Poetry Month to highlight how listening to poetry makes us better poets. I know I write the best when I’m surrounded by beautiful poetry–it’s part of the reason I created this podcast, and I want to encourage others to share this practice. We'll get started in April. You can share to #WriteAfterOPO.

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