Between Magnolia and Stamps,
on the dry road, it catches my eye:

a flash of blue in the trees, cool
violet bells, a color Hargreaves calls

a welcome sight in the tropics.
How can it thrive here,

alien flower, trapped chest-high
among the pines, in the underbrush

the size of a man, tangled
and green? My husband suffers

these musings later, mostly
in silence: he knows which man I mean.