Black Pansies

Dark holes in the blue
blaze of every day’s
sky-inflected flowers,
they spread nothing
of cheer like the blithe
tricolor heart’s-ease.
Under the nodding
hours of columbines they
flutter their velvety
portions of previous night.
How they wag
their burdens close
to the soil—
they pull your heart
down, these dis-
enchanted bleak soliloquies
I grew myself. But not
to be uprooted, for
all that, they’re
part of this mortal
summer seen through
the terrible apertures
of their petals;
with a sleight
of shade in sun-
light they pretend to
indigo. Each evening
like death’s little
flotilla returning
they grow to
fill the sky.