Lesbian Flower
by Kai Coggin
(for Sappho)
Our hillside is blooming pale purple and blue this morning,
lush with a rush of color after the rains, soft heart-shaped
leaves, pushing up through soil and splaying themselves open
across the meadow, vulnerable, fresh, saying I am love itself.
Newly sprung springtime is unfolding and I bend at the waist
into the lushness, don’t waste a moment fretting about guessing
the names of these wild flowering things — the naturalist in me
needs their true botanical handles. I zoom in with my plant ID app
and snap to reveal the common blue violet, Viola sororia, also known as
lesbian flower — what perfection, what queer botany, what synchronistic bliss
that this wildflower kissing by the thousands the whole of our hillside is called
the lesbian flower, violet, purplish blue sky dropped down to the earth spreading
here at home with supple hearts underfoot. The violet’s nectar says the app
is jarred loose by butterflies and bees who must burrow deep inside
the flower to reach its sweetness… lesbian flower, burrow deep, shake
me loose, nectar-sweet blooms all along our wild valley, our hills and curves.
From the isle of Lesbos, Sappho speaks in her Ode to Aphrodite —
Many crowns of violets, roses and crocuses…
many scented wreaths made from blossoms around your soft throat…
with pure, sweet oil… you anointed me, and on a soft, gentle bed…
you quenched your desire… no holy site… we left uncovered, no grove…
This trove of lesbian love language, 10,000 lines of lyrics, burned by men
who could never love with such softness. Only 650 fragments remain
yet here on our hillside, my lover and I walk barefoot in the after-wet rain,
crush violets, their edible petals and heart-shaped leaves, stepping toward
each other’s heart-shaped hearts and heart-shaped hands, lips and tongues,
burrow deep for the nectar, edible flowers, lesbian flower, common blue violet,
fragments burned into seeds over millennia blooming here, purpling blue
free and wild, 10,000 lines of lyrics open and blushing lush wet petals,
garlands and wreaths of violets, laurels of violets, laureate of lesbian flowers — I sing
my un-fragmented un-singed song to the poet who gave us her language
of softness throat neck lips hips thighs
strummed on her lyre the music that pulses pulses pulses perennial
through time and blooms blue here this morning,
my lover and I wet
with rain.
Our hillside is blooming pale purple and blue this morning,
lush with a rush of color after the rains, soft heart-shaped
leaves, pushing up through soil and splaying themselves open
across the meadow, vulnerable, fresh, saying I am love itself.
Newly sprung springtime is unfolding and I bend at the waist
into the lushness, don’t waste a moment fretting about guessing
the names of these wild flowering things — the naturalist in me
needs their true botanical handles. I zoom in with my plant ID app
and snap to reveal the common blue violet, Viola sororia, also known as
lesbian flower — what perfection, what queer botany, what synchronistic bliss
that this wildflower kissing by the thousands the whole of our hillside is called
the lesbian flower, violet, purplish blue sky dropped down to the earth spreading
here at home with supple hearts underfoot. The violet’s nectar says the app
is jarred loose by butterflies and bees who must burrow deep inside
the flower to reach its sweetness… lesbian flower, burrow deep, shake
me loose, nectar-sweet blooms all along our wild valley, our hills and curves.
From the isle of Lesbos, Sappho speaks in her Ode to Aphrodite —
Many crowns of violets, roses and crocuses…
many scented wreaths made from blossoms around your soft throat…
with pure, sweet oil… you anointed me, and on a soft, gentle bed…
you quenched your desire… no holy site… we left uncovered, no grove…
This trove of lesbian love language, 10,000 lines of lyrics, burned by men
who could never love with such softness. Only 650 fragments remain
yet here on our hillside, my lover and I walk barefoot in the after-wet rain,
crush violets, their edible petals and heart-shaped leaves, stepping toward
each other’s heart-shaped hearts and heart-shaped hands, lips and tongues,
burrow deep for the nectar, edible flowers, lesbian flower, common blue violet,
fragments burned into seeds over millennia blooming here, purpling blue
free and wild, 10,000 lines of lyrics open and blushing lush wet petals,
garlands and wreaths of violets, laurels of violets, laureate of lesbian flowers — I sing
my un-fragmented un-singed song to the poet who gave us her language
of softness throat neck lips hips thighs
strummed on her lyre the music that pulses pulses pulses perennial
through time and blooms blue here this morning,
my lover and I wet
with rain.
Kai Coggin (she/her) is the Inaugural Poet Laureate of the City of Hot Springs, and author of five collections, most recently Mother of Other Kingdoms (Harbor Editions, 2024). She is a Certified Master Naturalist, a K-12 Teaching Artist in poetry with the Arkansas Arts Council, a CATALYZE grant fellow from the Mid-America Arts Alliance, and host of the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country—Wednesday Night Poetry. Her poems have been widely published and anthologized, and she has won numerous awards for her service to children and the literary community. Coggin lives with her wife in a peaceful valley in Hot Springs National Park, where they tend to wild ones and each other.