Sticky Monkey Flower (Mimulus aurantiacus)

By Kathryn Petruccelli

Puckered for a kiss, your flowers' golden lips beg
all the way up the trail. Are you just about the show? 

Sticky Monkey—stage name to beat.
Look at the audience you draw: 

bush lupine, prickly pear, Indian paintbrush, scarlet pimpernel. 
Poison oak draped around you like it owns you. 

It never used to be like this, all bustle and flame. You were salve,
eased fever. The Coast Miwok, the Pomo, they knew 

you relieved burning. Have we forgotten your roots? 
These days, it feels like a matter of time—everyone at the party 

knocking paper cups together, pointing manicured fingers at the view,
a petal away from combusting. Right now, in another place, 

the blazes chase glossy black-cockatoos, water skinks, bristlebirds.
How deep is memory buried? 

So beautiful—your scorched, little mouths.

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Kathryn Petruccelli is a bicoastal performer and writer with an M.A. in teaching English language learners. Her work has appeared in places like New Ohio Review, Rattle, River Teeth's Beautiful Things, Poet Lore, december, and SWWIM Every Day. Nominated for Best of the Net 2020, Kathryn is a past winner of San Francisco's Litquake essay contest and a finalist for the 2019 Omnidawn Broadside Poetry Prize. She teaches online writing workshops from western Massachusetts. More at poetroar.com.

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