Here’s a bright spot. A wound packed with blossoms. Healing requires pluck. After any conflict flowers get drafted from the earth                antithesis of uniforms                beatitudes of color. Cultivate consolation year round because, face the sun, things fester. My lover brought me marigolds                after our last scrape.                        I’d been slighted and was stewing a meager pot of broth on the kitchen stove. When he came in his hands full of flowers I knew                we’d adorn each other.                        And the soup. Even the virgin in the upturned tub got a garland. Something was righted. Assuage is not a romantic word                but calendula is                a balm of sorts. A wound packed with blossoms beats a wound.
	NOTE:  One of the great wound healers with extensive use in the Civil War, pot marigold staunches blood flow and works as an antiseptic preventing infection and encouraging healing. My boyfriend gave me calendula, but he knew I was writing about it.
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Calendula officinalis
Marigold