Passion

by Grace Marie Grafton

Lend my heart to a passion flower in Surinam

because it has guardian ants and there

my heart would be, tucked down

between the stems of the pistils

and the ants would assume it to be integral

to the flower and would guard it from all threat.

I'd be safe. At least, my heart would be.

Yesterday I heard a poet say 'the price of love.'

Of course she didn't mean legal tender or even

a ring or deed to a house. She meant sorrow.

Do the guardian ants love the flower, their job?

I'd like to think so, maybe an insect kind of

love but I know I love the passion flower and,

despite the fact that I know it will die and

I will die (the ants too), it still feels good.

I want to share my passion with their

passion, just look at the color of those petals,

just look how beautifully my heart fits under the

cerise punctuation of the pistils, look at the articulated

dangerous complexity of the ants' legs.

* * * * *

"Passion" was first published in Askew.

Grace Marie Grafton is the author of six collections of poems, most recently 'Jester,' published by Hip Pocket Press. She has taught thousands of children to write poetry through her work with CA Poets in the Schools.