Diving Past Violets, by Annie Finch

These words and I don’t see you, though we charge

like horses past your tumid living stems,

stepping behind our braided forelocks, down

the paths your stems make, rooting underground.

Our tails move last into the mossy dirt,

swishing the last ray of daylight off.

How else could we approach? I knew I’d end

with winding, deep inside such patient caves.

From “Eve,” by Annie Finch (Story Line Press: 60 pp., $11.95) Copyright 1997. Reprinted by permission.