Poem - “Yellow Tulips”

When I’m sweaty like cotton candy 

in the seventh inning stretch 

of the final game of the World Series, 

out-of-tune like a piano 

too drunk to debut in Carnegie Hall, 

empty as a soothsayer with no truth, 

frightened as glass afraid to shatter, 

when the dead yellow tulips remind 

me that we will all turn to dust, 

I think of you playing with my hair 

three weeks before you died. 

The soft white clouds, you said, 

will always be there. 

Not much comfort. But enough.

“Yellow Tulips” from Love and Kumquats: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2019 by Kathi Wolfe ‘78 M.Div. Reprinted with permission by the poet.