"White Violets in South Hadley" by Cynthia Zarin

So many of them wicking the lawns--
a hundred handkerchiefs dropped
by the daughters of the Pleiades
to mask their seven-square fears.

Their gold is the hive's dry dust --
their petals a thousand small white knuckles . . .

On Faculty Lane, the whiteness
of the dogwood bleaches their white
bank to almost nothing, ghosts of
ghosts, damp violet coals burnt out,

as if a bruise that seemed to leave no mark
had left the image of its pressure here.

(The New Yorker, 10/12/1992)

#poeminyourpocket

Wigged

I'm really wigged out by how quickly official statements are made, official logos created in the wake of disasters. For example.