Lupini Bean – Extra Large

Lupinus mutabilis

By M. L. Brown

You leave us to float in salted water for days.
Pale, misshapen rounds, legume belugas
in your glass mixing bowl. We watch


as you head to work in the morning,
gym bag, briefcase, umbrella then charge
through the door at night, drop everything


to the floor.  It’s been raining for weeks, you’re soaked.
You do not notice how beautiful we are when wet.

M. L. Brown is the author of Call It Mist, winner of the 2018 Three Mile Harbor Press Book Prize, and Drought, winner of the Claudia Emerson Chapbook award. Her work has appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, and Blackbird, among other journals and anthologies. Also by this poet: "Christmas Lima Beans" and "House"