young girl (seven or eight) brought me daisies
dropped them like coins in my case
while her mother looked on
smiling but wary
strangers can be dangerous
in black clothes on hot days

I had been fretting Rusted Root’s song
used in a film big at the time
about sabretooth tigers & prehistoric squirrels

the girl knew it &
sprightly from animation
happiest in summer
after a barefoot walk in the grass
gave me amber gems set in white

Ace Boggess is author of four books of poetry, most recently I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So (Unsolicited Press, 2018) and Ultra Deep Field (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2017), and two novels, including States of Mercy (Alien Buddha Press, 2019). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and other journals. He received a fellowship from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and spent five years in a West Virginia prison. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.