Violet Madrigal

No bigger than horse-flies,
the lawns smalt with them,
each tri-heart bloom a giant’s head
afloat a thread of stem;

yard sugar, whose lust scent reels
then numbs the nose with ionine—
pagan flesh the ancients crushed
to make a stirring wine.

Fleur Napoleon claimed and strew
in heaps upon the grave of Josephine,
lover to whom, after months apart,
he wrote before reunion, Don’t wash.

Love token, my trembler, glance, my woo,
now pressed & turning blue the pages of my book.