Hellebore

Almost divine, shining in August-cold air,

Winter Rose, your bowed head, bonnet-like,

Shimmers with fresh paint, a palette of pink,

Besides the daffodils’ glow, gold on gold they sway

While you blush, a guilefully bashful face, that tips

in shy curtseys beside jagged evergreen leaves.

Clumped in perennial pairs, so demurely you drowse,

Nod, nodding,

Spotlit by morning sun,

Lenten Rose, a queen in name only;

For poison lies waiting in your floral court

Orientalis: petals, sepals, stamens –

All deceptively, beautifully, fatal.