Wild Violets

by Elinor Ann Walker

Tiptoe past the tall, silent jars of preserved

pickles, beans, tomatoes, and peaches that sink

arrested in their clove-redolent peppercorn brines,

past the stolid wooden bowls of apples on the table,

and push the kitchen door out into April with me

where, before the first mow, the tiny violets

repeat themselves in spring babble, purple

white, yellow, blue, a mantra uttered, scattered

over verdant crowns. See how the veins mark

their petals in watercolor, as chaotic as aberrant

scans or EKG tremors of a galloping heart,

how the flowers arch like periwinkle shells,

two halves, butterfly wings. Their nonsense

is mine. I hold them in reserve, their silliness,

abandon, in my mind’s eye (all aperture, iris-

wide, watery, a salty pool) where I float

from petal to petal, sipping sweetness as long

as I can, which is not long at all, some blade

as close as a blink, so the image must stay pulse

in the throat, memory, this purple flowering

its own spell: I give you

violets, violets, violets.