Death of a Ventriloquist

Wildflowers of North America

39 Wildflowers of North America I was there on the phone with my wrench (a mistflower: tiny clusters of violet fuzz) when all you wanted was the cave of my right ear. Even knotweed and three-leaf clover know how to listen. And a woodland sunflower: it twists and cranes stalk and disc—see, there I go again. I should be wishing that the thirty-year-old mother and wife, your patient, survive the non-native villages that colonize her organs like ragweed or ivy (those rows of green nodding heads, that creeping, sun-diminishing death). I should have said, Let that invasion be overrun with blackberry thickets and jewelweed (good thorns; a burst of orange, seedpods that pop). I should have said, I’ll be home soon, love, leave your white coat anywhere you want. A sudden field: I’ll be your Lobelia and Coreopsis. I swear (petals like little lips and ears, scent of anise) I thought the names could make things better. ...