Cate Marvin

VIOLETS

The way some people are about weeds: I’m not
as forgiving. I see a weed and could will a knife

out my eyes to gouge its root. It has no place in
my garden, which means it can go anywhere it

likes, but it’d be better off counting this flower
bed out. I love to think while weeding, and I do

so meticulously. I think of everyone who has
ever crossed me, I cross the sea of ex-husbands,

I reimagine my dowry and regard suitors once
worthy who are now shackled to others. Why,

I wonder, was I so cruel, as I jab the trowel in
deeper, press fingers along the root’s length

to be certain I’ve got it all, that it’ll never come
back. I toss the tangle onto the tarry drive to

bake distant from its source. That’s our glad
friend the dandelion, which my daughter so

sweetly hands me, which I see as an evil star
with jagged fronds outspread exactly where I

don’t want, which is everywhere. I’m almost
fond of that plant, though I’ll never consider

eating its greens (let’s not pretend) compared
to how I feel about violets, so grotesque with

their tubers, that are sometimes larger than
the as yet realized ambitions of their leaves.

Violets are possessed of a skank sneakiness
that, after reading about it and then taking

apart the plant to fully examine it, recognize
its design, stunned me: the sprightly purple

of its face masquerades as propagator while
ghostly droplets of seeds flourish beneath

the umbrellas of leaves, so close to the earth
they are practically buried, nursing the soil

with their paleness. It’s pure Hades. My love
said, standing at the kitchen sink, Why does it

seem you want to destroy every plant I love.
First, it’s violets, now daylilies. How could I

have known their strange, their orange, their
staggered roadside stems reminded him of

his dead friend signaling the ghost memory
of them white water rafting on the Allagash?

He was aghast. But how did the two connect?
I’m not sure. This friend poured himself down

a sink, departing into the underworld, his last
guided trip down the sweet Lethe. They call

them ditch lilies. Which is where I threw them.
Must I sacrifice my aesthetics for sentiment?

You think I discriminate. I admit that so many
tubers, the nubby handfuls of them, along with

their audacity to grow anywhere, got to me.
I began to think it gross. In my defense, we

had a hard winter. How many of the flowers
I planted will I see again?  No matter. I refuse

to beg them to turn their faces toward the sun.
I myself have lost almost everyone. Some plants

I’d plant again, others I’d forgo. I don’t know.
Whisper greeny nudges to plants you love all

you like, say, It’s safe to come out now. But that’s
not true. That’s not true at all. Gimme a break.

CATE MARVIN is the author of four books of poems. Her newest collection is Event Horizon (Copper Canyon, 2022). A former Guggenheim recipient, she is Professor of English at the College of Staten Island, CUNY, as well as a core faculty member in poetry at the Stonecoast low-residency MFA program in creative writing. She lives in Maine.