Pansies

Pansies

When crushed sprouts from a thinned bed smell like cantaloupe

I plant a row of pansies

the mother-may-I line of tri-colored children

cutting through lingering snow like sunlight through a prism

after a wild pony cart ride at an amusement park

where a buck-toothed two-year old

outsmarting Puck

climbs out a painted dray with wheels groaning over rails

like an “imperial vot'ress" passing on "fancy-free”

while Cupid brushes flowers “purple with love's wound"

clearing away tears as the Roman Pliny writes

easing headaches and dizziness and what Shakespeare called “love’s idleness.”

Mostly, though, these mildly soothing pansies

help me sleep on long nights broken by train whistles

Out my window, I still see them

dancing toward mother under the moon.