New Poetry by Zebulon Huset

On the Cusp of Summer, Minnesota

            for my mother

During the couple weeks

when the neighborhood

bloomed a pale blue-hue

then burst full of purple

we’d round up armfuls

of the lilac buds. We’d

bust out every stadium

collector cup and every

dollar store and garage

or yard sale vase and on

every flat surface precariously

perched some water and

a rubber-band-bound bunch

of dying blossoms. As kids

we never suffered through

the disposal of their dried

husks with the slimy bit

of mold clinging to the stems.

We merely knew that our lilacs

brought spring into the house

just before school loosed us

for another raucous summer.

- © Zebulon Huset 2022

Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and photographer. He won the Gulf Stream 2020 Summer Poetry Contest and his writing has appeared in Best New Poets, Meridian, Rattle, The Southern Review, Fence, and blueppeper among others. He publishes Notebooking Daily, and edits the literary journals Coastal Shelf and Sparked.