Petunias (On Leaving Home) By Taylor Ingrassia

There is a particular way in which

My home’s petunias glow

Early on summer mornings 

That gives the sun a somehow

Heightened sense of power:

Power to turn these small flowers—

Purple petals open as if to

Catch the light, or maybe release it—

Into stars of their own kind,

In the dawn’s repose.

When the sun gleams from

Just above the rooftops,

The petunias refract its light

Like falling rain, alight

In brighter, delicate shades,

Stained glass

Held suspended from shattering

By long stalks erupting wildly 

From the earth.

Through their paper-thin petals

I see a round bee resting nimbly,

Balancing carefully on the flowers

That later will detach with ease

But now stand firm

With unforeseen strength

To allow the bee to drink.

I could drink in the sight

At each daybreak,

(From behind finger-stained glass

Or simply sitting on the doorstep)

Watching singing birds depart for other places

As I sit and wait for those petals to drop.

I could stay here, day in and day out,

Resting on the rough-textured brick

Or beneath a paper-thin blanket,

Sleeping, waking, turning over, sleeping—

Day in and day out,

Flowers falling and unfurling and standing tall and falling—

We planted this garden summers ago.

What was once a few stalks in the earth

Has now become an untamed forest of 

Long green leaf and purple rain.

Everyone warned the seeds would spread quickly,

But I guess— I didn’t want to trim them back.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that

I could stay. I could stay 

Day in and day out

And let time unfurl

Like petunia petals,

Let purple summertime sing to me

Wind-whispered lullabies and symphonies as I 

Sleep, wake, turn over, sleep—

But what use was planting this garden in me

If I keep trimming it back?

I stand in the garden

With two feet in the dirt below me,

Two feet that grew large without my noticing.

I stand with a daunting sky before me.

It looms on a horizon whose coming

I saw but never thought I would reach.

I guess what I’ve always thought is that

The skin on my hands was too

Paper-thin to hold myself up.

But my hands have grown large without my noticing.

I stand with this daunting sky before me,

And the safety of the garden behind,

Yet, despite uncertainties and insecurities,

I now know that I have grown 

As tall as these perennial petunias—

Reaching upwards to catch the light,

Or maybe to release it, like the sun!—

And no matter where I allow my leaves to spread

I can grow a garden to hold them.

I could stay.

And maybe I cannot detach with ease.

But if I depart with the birds into the sky ahead,

I know this garden home will be with me.

I will unfurl and stand tall and fall and unfurl

Petals as walls, walls that will form

A new home—within me.