and it seemed at once they’d fallen in love…

I came upon these white peonies at the market yesterday, their heads nearly as big as my own and their fragrance so potent. They found their way into my basket and into my living room (and into my viewfinder)…The poem below is a favorite from a dear friend, one that I’ve had pinned on the bulletin board in my kitchen for quite a long time.

Peonies

Heart transplants my friend handed me:

four of her own peony bushes

in their fall disguise, the arteries

of truncated, dead wood protruding

from clumps of soil fine-veined with worms.

“Better get them in before the frost.”

And so I did, forgetting them

until their June explosion when

it seemed at once they’d fallen in love,

had grown two dozen pink hearts each.

Extravagance, exaggeration,

each one girl on her first date,

excess perfume, her dress too ruffled,

the words he spoke to her too sweet–

but he was young; he meant it all.

And when they could not bear the pretty

weight of so much heart, I snipped

their dew-sopped blooms; stuffed them in vases

in every room like tissue boxes

already teary with self-pity.

~Mary Jo Salter