For an amaryllis in the pandemic

How unpromising you seemed:
frostbitten, forlorn, blanketed in snow.
Dead leaves humped and left to rot
in a forgotten corner of the garden
where you had feasted summerlong
on sun and rain.

With what reckless hope I carried you
to a dark and silent space inside;
caressed your withered brown and peeling skin,
your pale and gravid bulb
neck-deep in soil,
half believing that the dead return.

First the killing frost
and the long, empty stillness of winter.
Then the sudden thrust of one green shoot;
the fierce explosion of bloodred petals,
velvet and transparent
as any newborn flesh.