The Spring

by Lisa Ortiz

I don’t know about the force
that drives the green but it seems that spring
comes as it does like a slap or a cheap gift
a rhyming verse in a glittered card

seems it would lose for me
its methamphetamine rush, its childish tune
for God’s sake I’m a grown woman
here gone weak for a blue fist of delphiniums

or round the corner in the forest
purple flax bursting in a pool of amber light—
should be nothing to me
I should spit or swear

duct tape on the windows
let the answering machine pick it up
knowing the way I know
it all washes down the storm drain

all splashes to the ashy caverns
of a November night and the earth turns cankered
seeds all eaten by beasts the whole thing
tractored over

and so what
that a bunch of buttercups punch up
that the finches are on again in song.
Well, I’ve seen most of this before.

Lisa Ortiz lives in La Honda. E-mail: ortiz@coastside.net