A subjective history of orchids
       

1.

As a child, I saw African orchids on TV
They were salacious.
I was guilty.

2.

Collectors, who were men,
first raped the rainforests
in order to harvest
every single orchid.

3.

The Suffragettes attacked
the Orchid House at Kew.
It was a bastion of male
brutality.

4.

Some are not beautiful
but still transfix.
Some kill.

5.

Darwin wrote a book,
Vario us Contrivances
by which Orchids
are Fertilised by Insects
It does not illuminate
anything.

6.

It is not altogether clear
whether orchids
actually originate here
on this planet.

7.

Real orchids are sometimes
mistaken for plastic.

8.

Indigenous Irish orchids
will not embarrass you.
They huddle among pale rocks
in the Burren.

9.

One summer, I found them
on rough ground at Westside
among beer cans and condoms.

10.

This summer there were none.

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Copyright © 2018 Rachel Coventry All rights reserved
from Afternoon Drinking in The Jolly Butchers
Salmon Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission