Rewrite Mimosa

MIMOSA

The mimosa bristled pink outside my bedroom window,

its leaves collapsed in the dark, closed like rows of praying hands. 

Each summer night I fell asleep with the scent

of it, soft and powdery, clinging to my dreams. 

When I was rewriting my days in September

with sharpened number 2s still tagged

with cleanest pink erasers and it was nearly officially fall,

mornings broke wet and chilly,

heavy as wool blankets left on the clothesline overnight.

By noon the heat would build, would stifle,

so mornings I shivered in shirt sleeves, waiting

beside the dewy green wisteria, past its purple prime.

Uncomfortable in my own new shoes,

still stiff and shiny, 

I tried to summon confidence

before the bus arrived. 

Sometimes I plucked a feathery mimosa flower and

tucked it behind my ear on the way to the end of the driveway.

I imagined myself pretty and exotic, brave for being different,

like a Haight-Ashbury hippy in my red-neck town.

Overhead a single mockingbird

layered one song over another.  Romantic that I was,

I began my listening believing

it sang because its little bird heart overflowed

but I knew it was only borrowing from its nature.

The first notes seemed plaintive, for the lost night and dreams;

liquid, fluid, much like  my mother gently moving me

into the day and off to junior high.

As the bus topped the hill, 

that unctuous bird became sharp and shrill,

still carrying on, nagging like a conscience. 

Impostor and thief of songs!  I left the flower on the lawn,

too soon convinced we were both liars.