Saffron
By Lauren Scharhag
It’s hard to imagine how
once I stood half a world away
from where we would meet,
looking out over saffron fields.
All summer long, I watched
the low green plants
poke from sandy soil,
but I would be gone
before the crocuses
could bloom, exposing
by night their
coveted red stigmas.
I would never have
the orange-stained hands
of a mondadora.
Now, as many years later
as my age that summer,
you buy a bottle
of the expensive spice
with just a few threads inside
like a witch ball,
and serve me paella
in our own kitchen.
One day, you promise,
you’ll give me back
La Mancha.
With my mouth
full of rice,
I believe you.
Lauren Scharhag is an award-winning writer of fiction and poetry. She is the author of Under Julia, The Ice Dragon, The Winter Prince, West Side Girl & Other Poems, and the co-author of The Order of the Four Sons series. Her poems and short stories have appeared in over seventy journals and anthologies, including Voice of Eve, Isacoustic, The American Journal of Poetry, and Gambling the Aisle. She lives on Florida’s Emerald Coast. To learn more about her work, visit: www.laurenscharhag.blogspot.com