dad, my love for you could be
a potted orchid: chipped bark,
climate control, delicate
watering preferences. like other
growers, i’d order my life
around rare, uncertain
flowerings. or is it
better anchored in a terra cotta
pot emitting more sturdy
greenery? silver inch or spider
plant or something tropical whose name
will never stick on my tongue—
even a cactus in coarse desert soil,
unable to bear abundance.
Originally published in The San Diego Poetry Annual.
Ann Tweedy was born and grew up in Southeastern Massachusetts but has spent most of her adult life living in various parts of the West Coast and, more recently, the Midwest. She currently lives in Vermillion, South Dakota, which locals affectionately refer to as “the Miami of South Dakota.” Her poetry explores family and personal relationships, nature, social justice and race, and bisexuality and queerness. Ann’s first full-length book, The Body’s Alphabet, was published by Headmistress Press in 2016. It earned a Bisexual Book Award in Poetry and was also a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and for a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Ann also has published three chapbooks, Beleaguered Oases (2nd ed. Seven Kitchens 2020), White Out (Green Fuse Poetic Arts 2013), and A Registry of Survival (Last Word 2020). Earlier this year, A Registry of Survival was featured in the Wardrobe section of The Sundress Blog. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Literary Mama, Clackamas Literary Review, Naugatuck River Review, and many other places, and she has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and five Best of the Net Awards. A law professor by day, Ann has devoted her career to serving Native Tribes. She currently teaches at University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law. Read more about her at anntweedy.com.