Lilacs were my first rhapsody

Lilacs were my first rhapsody Kay Ulanday Barrett (bio) all of them gawkers, neighbors pointing, and a kindergartenteacher clumsily mash-jammed letters that were supposedlymy mother's name. after church pews our knees ached for blankets as my mother took an imposed Q and A from whiteonlookers over glazed donuts, her smile coiled in coffee steam,and you are thinking now where are the petals of the poem? when exactly did a mother become majesty, and whereis the growth in all this? i will point to many slopes of tallpurple in our yard. bushes proud to welcome our car in the driveway after the jokes about how my mom eats fishhead soup or how good Christians mimicked the way shepronounced heaven. after the concrete steps of our home dampened with wet concave tears. this mighty woman madesomething to come home to. how she walked to the floweringand bowed. touched delicate stamens with manicured nails as though each were an applause made by a loved one thousandsof miles away. also, the way it all grew from ground she didn't belong to. how the earth can burst for a broken heart. howwe both laid down in grass after Sunday mass and let our palms xylophone violet compounds deciduous lavenderclusters while bumblebees skipped jauntily petal to petal. Oh, how the air was just simply sweeter. [End Page 42] Kay Ulanday Barrett kay ulanday barrett is a poet, essayist, and cultural strategist. They are the winner of the Cy Twombly Award for Poetry by the Foundation of Contemporary Arts. Their work has been published in the New York Times, Lit Hub, Poem-a-Day, Vogue, Brevity, and more. Their book More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) is a Stonewall Honor Book and a Lambda Literary Award Finalist.