from Remember the Flowers
Winner (Poetry) of the 2021 Stone Soup Book Contest

The grass is always greener on the other
side. I didn’t understand
when Appa first said it
but I did understand when she opened one purple
container revealing Trader Joe’s lemon yogurt, sweet
and sour, so perfectly white,
just the right portion, spooned up with plastic . . .
I begged and begged Umma
to buy
the same yogurt at the grocery store

then I put it into a bowl,
with metal spooned up the white lemon yogurt.
But hers looked better in the plastic container.
Mine
was never the same.

At lunch I brought a thermos of rice
with seaweed sprinkled
over the top.
She envied mine and asked her mom
till one day, one container contained
some rice with seaweed sprinkles too.
She made a face—
the rice was cold.

Remember the Flowers was released on September 1, 2022.
You can order the book at Barnes & Noble or through our Amazon store: Amazon.com/stonesoup.