In Praise of Plastic Flowers

Because I come from a long line of bisexual nonbinary pacifists

married to cis gender hetero army officers, and because

the opening of this poem is a lie, but a sweet one:

a silk flower of a sentiment. I just want to say it somewhere:

I am not alone. I inherited what is good from people who tried

to do right but also did wrong, who enabled pain

while cultivating love where it wasn’t expected to grow.

My grandparents appreciated bowls of painted stone grapes

and apples because it showed them what plenty might look like

on their tables. Every day is an argument in favor of surprise.

I show my daughter how to twist a plastic plumeria blossom

the color of margarine into her dark hair

because real plumeria blooms far away from where we are

while the Dollar Tree near our house is bountiful with 10¢ knockoffs,

and I remember how little beauty has to do with exactness.

It is more concerned with what we hope about the contradictory world:

that it remains both soft and callused, rare and everywhere,

that it is what it has been and what it could be too.

Abby E. Murray (they/them) is the editor of Collateral, a literary journal concerned with the impact of violent conflict and military service beyond the combat zone. Their first book, Hail and Farewell, won the Perugia Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, while their second book, Recovery Commands, won the Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize and was released by Ex Ophidia Press in 2025. For now, they live in the Pacific Northwest. www.abbyemurray.com