In Season and Out

Milton Jordan

February 8, 2022

for Anne

This year, for once, our Christmas Cactus chose

to fulfill its official task and bloom

at the onset of Advent, white buds

appearing at the ends of jagged stems.

You saw those and swapped your Chinese Dollar 

from the back corner of our table

for that seasonally specific cactus

in its red clay pot rimmed by a broad band

glazed green dark enough to appear black

over a Caddo incised pattern.

Breakfast’s morning sun lights the new blossoms

near the tips of those saw blade edged leaves

reflecting, you remark, Christmas green highlights 

off the rim’s irregularly notched design.

Milton Jordan lives in Georgetown with the musician Anne Elton Jordan. His most recent poetry collection is What the Rivers Gather, SFASU Press, 2020. Milton edited the anthology, No Season for Silence: Texas Poets and Pandemic, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2020.