Amaryllis present

Of this genus, a live thirteenth
a kingly crown, for her first son,
or, in a tin salvo, a fire engine red token
opened now, like blinking stars located
when rounding off an empty minor road.

In the window sat, cased, within
a vaped haze bowling from a cottoned
mouth. Active interior before a scissored
tripod, both answering the outside’s raining
million dab. The standard viewing now

vague again, this time, in the wake
of this gift, a beaut. Resilience
inching from a densed shallow,
well-wishing against the downwards
backdrop run by the street below.

Year’s first perennial and Mum’s present,
a misnomer set to be overlooked in
due course. Till then a grown dwarfing
its pot to force onlookers’ crawls to stop.
For here is a lacked heat that does not

singe nor its corner tips curl. Rather it sings
of a light elsewhere coveting relief dark,
the whole kit and kerboodle exists to want
shelter so you should not miss Mary’s amaryllis
present as it can thrill with plain old kindness.

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Felt Press by Patrick Willan was published in the December issue, Encounters, of Panorama: Journal of Travel, Place and Identity. Willan was included in Black Spring Press’ Best New British and Irish Poets 2019-2021, and two of his poems were part of the 2025 Writing the Mill exhibition at Queen St. Mill in Burnley, North East Lancashire, England.