Carol Carpenter

Pushed by Passion

Aunt Violet loved the smell of dirt,
the way it felt, the way it crumbled in her hand. 
She said it reminded her of sex.

Aunt Violet raked her flowerbeds
clean of rotted leaves and fallen twigs
while she inhaled the fertile, woodsy odor.

On her knees, Aunt Violet planted marigold seeds
plucked from the frosted stems last fall
just before the earth turned white as her bed sheet.

Back near the corner of her blue house, Aunt Violet
inhaled that first bit of green: a row of slender leaves
in sunlight, open to catch the aqua sky and rain to come.

Aunt Violet knew how those leaves had burst from bulbs,
how they had licked nutrients from dirt. Those leaves
wiggled upward, pushed by passion to reach the light. 

Aunt Violet rose from the ground, her knees brown
with dirt, her flesh hot and sweaty. She had waited 
months for the vernal equinox, for that musky smell of love.