Frangipani in Lockdown

Happy National Poetry Month! We are honored to bring you poems from a special project, “Poetry in Bloom,” a collaboration with O, Miami Poetry Festival, poets Sandra Beasley and Neil de la Flor, and Dolly’s Florist. For all of April, these poems about flowers are being folded into origami and sent out with bouquets from Dolly’s. They also appear on O, Miami and on SWWIM in a variety of accessible ways, including audio, ALT text, and more.

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Sadness has lodged itself inside me—even with reiki,
a Zoom dance party, laddoos of desi ghee—it grows

on my chest, locking it down. I hopscotch
on terrace tiles, seek rest under an archway

of fairy lights, but nothing sticks, except
the scent of frangipani.

A month ago, not a single leaf, limbs jutting
out like skinny models, waiting

to be draped. When the first petal appeared,
I thought it a mistake: a white leaf, fallen

from another tree. By now, it is clear:
they bloom. Each day a promise

of something new. I count
six budding flowers and bouquets of leaves, inhale

all the way to the soles of my feet.

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Kandala Singh is a writer and qualitative researcher from New Delhi. She lives with her partner in a flat that looks out at Ashoka trees, and escapes to the mountains as often as she can. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Rust + Moth, The Alipore Post, and Muse India. You can find her on Instagram @kandalasingh.