Poppy

478 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE Poppy The poppy is only a husk now: a latticed cup on a spire tipped on its side spilling curved seeds into my hand. In its prime it was plant silk and velvet: a dark disk center atop a green fertile bulb, petals wrapping, like a robe. If I were small enough and humble, I would slip like an earwig through the desiccated spaces into the hollowed pod; I would be shrivenand confess. I could wait for the seeds to ripen and the walls to thin, cracking open slowly, light increasing with the longer days, until finally the cup gives way on its own, and the seeds pour out as gently, as doubtlessly, as winter gives way to spring. AMANDA HAWKINS ...