Violets, Sweet Violets

From seed to shoot and stem,

serrated hearts of leaves,

hooks of blue blooms;

I felt it take root at first

in my spleen until it grew

to wreathe my rib cage 

in a flush of sweet violet, and yet 

I am as quiet about it

as a convent. 
 

This kind of death wish is hushed

and whispered

if ever uttered 

at all.

 

But these dark thoughts must be 

muttered into bloodlines, 

because I imagine

the bleached bright ward, 

a hospital bed of violets;

what words can I offer now 

when the night and its dead stars

have swallowed me too.

 

And I remember,

I remember how my own despair

was met with silence.

 

Here are heirlooms and history --

I measure the distance between 

truth and memory. 
 

I am the great white cow, Ione,

chewing a cud

with the temperance of violets --

what consolation

from the kind of men

who would make themselves 

gods!

 

Follow the water, after all

this is a path for the wayless. 

I breathe, I exist, the violet 

lives on in me still, 

a cold brute 

of a misunderstood February

with its early promise to usher

back the light.

 

 

Painting is from here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Violets,_sweet_violets_,_by_John_William_Godward.jpg#mw-jump-to-license