I
Wildflower of Appalachia
who are you? Crested-dwarf Iris
with your bright yellow tongue
were you braided into long locks
of a Cherokee girl to catch the sun
glint on blue black hair?

II
When I was sixteen
our family garden gave us
vegetables for a whole year.
That summer mama and I
canned more than 100 quarts.
He was twenty when he courted me,
became a gaffer, a glass-bottle blower in town
I fell hard for. I wish mama was here to help —
I’m big with our first
and it seems summer will never end.

III
When I was twenty, I walked
the Wilderness Road through
from Virginia to Kentucky. I counted time
by how many socks I mended
with old petticoat strips for my family’s feet
their skin worn down to scars like leather
by broken tree limbs’ scratches or split
by rocks some say are slivers
of ancient ocean floor. I began to imagine
us as sea creatures, unmoored, seeking shelter.

IV
By the time we reach the Gap
I bury my first baby girl, her toes
curled like faded rose petals.
I wash her with rainwater dipped
from the barrel we keep on the side
of the wagon. Gnats thick and thirsty
circle, cicadas screech, drown my cries.
The chestnut stomps, her haunches quiver
so horseflies can’t sit long enough to bite.

I wrap her in small swaths of cotton from a petticoat
never worn, nestle her in my only fancy hat
lined with white satin, a sachet of lavender tucked
under her sweet head, lower her into the grave
Fred dug, let a tear fall for every breath she’d lived,
a tiny mound of dirt under a willow tree.