Mighty Mimosas

by Robert Baylot

Two mimosas in our back yard,
Three brothers a year apart each,
A fenced back yard and summers
To fill with something.

Before the basketball goal,
Before the “clubhouse” (storage room),
Before ingenuity would strike
With a neighborhood Olympics, using canes
For poles and pole vaulting,
And sprints down the straight streets,
And baseball bats for golf clubs
With a golf ball and spoon-dug holes.

Before all that, two mimosas
And two brothers climbing in the larger one
And one brother climbing in the other,
Among the delicate pink and white flowers,
Strong limbs lead up, maybe twenty feet high,
To striking vistas.

We see, up through the neighbor’s yard,
A street and all who passed,
And down below, all the lower dwellers.
We see everything they do,
Grass cutting, sickling hills,
Neighbors having a beer after work
On foldup chairs.

Ah, to rule the world, or the neighborhood,
At least for three boys one summer afternoon
Where unknown to anyone but ourselves,
We established dominion
In mighty mimosas.

Robert Baylot has published poems in The Broad River Review, Clarion, The Delta Poetry Review, Poetry Super Highway and Deep South. He writes poetry and fiction from his home in Germantown, Tennessee.