“The Complicated Sex Life of Primula ...
fascinated Charles Darwin.”
—ScienceDaily
A Mardi Gras of primroses line my driveway.
Pin-eyed, thrum-eyed, natural selection in action;
the carnival of primroses grow in number daily.
Every spring they perform street theater, they perform
the Easter story with beads, feathers, and leather tongues.
Yellow vests, they agitate against the March snow; late
calling card of winter. They are frozen cells of embryos
waiting to live. In my garden, cultivated,
I have red primroses; I have blue. Posy-globes in orbit,
they contain unconquered territories. Spring after spring
the primroses unleash their watchful eyes, opening
despite the northeasterlies. When the thaw comes, I paint
my body half-primrose, hang a nosegay of thirteen primroses
by my front door. I look into a primrose the way one
looks into a mirror to see the same exaggerated grin;
the same teardrop staining the face.
Source: Poetry (June 2020)