Iris

I What is this Easter eve that I should find a flower on my dark doorstep? A sign of secret love perhaps, but why this mystery? What is this thrill that leaves this light delightful touch? A ghost perhaps of what the feminine portends. Either that, or some seductive beauty by nature dark that breathes as I breathe and finds its roots in every nerve. II A gift of God, for sure. It is the most beautiful flower— three petals with all the color of the sun around the purple of the heart— but just a flower, really, in a green bottle. III I’d sooner do without it. if I could find who left it. IV In the morning I call my friend, telling her about this flower. You have a secret admirer, she says. I ask her not to put me on, but to tell me if it’s her. No, a joke. Why do I ask when the mystery’s so pleasant? V Then I look outside my window and there I see two more such flowers in my neighbor’s garden. The third: a token, I suspect, of friendship. So what if it is an empty wine bottle? Out of it flows a silent beauty, a lonely beauty, born of my imaginings.