First Crocuses

Donald Platt

                          They are the colors
of my dead father’s Lenten chasuble, royal purple with one huge gold
                              cross, as he celebrated

the early Sunday morning mass. No, these crocuses are the colors
                              of my first girlfriend’s
striped panties as I groped her on the balcony of the Mahaiwe...

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Donald Platt is the author of eight books, including Swansdown, which won the 2022 Off the Grid Poetry Prize. Twenty-four of his poems have appeared within the last year, or are forthcoming, in sixteen journals including The Atlantic.
Originally published:
April 1, 2018

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