My mother planted marigolds
along the pathway to
our front door.
Their orange and yellow
frills lit my steps,
even in daylight.
Our house was hemmed in
by the auto body shop
next door.
Its junk yard loomed,
overgrown with weeds—
hulking storage containers
left rusting like
fossils from some
prehistoric period.
The shop revved
engines and honked horns
late into the night,
the men howling curses
with beery cheer.
Hope
was the only four letter word
mom knew,
and the marigolds her
only act of defiance.
Marigolds
Joel Bush reads things. He also writes things. Well, sometimes he reads the things he writes. That tends to help. He is the winner of the 2021 CSUF Earth Day Poetry Contest, and his work has been featured in Meniscus, Poetry Super Highway, and Quibble Lit.