Dave Bonta looks closely at the wood anemone, mixing botany with folklore and a little mischief. He describes how the flower sways at the slightest disturbance, how its pale petal-like sepals catch the April sun, and how solitary bees carry pollen between plants. The language turns oddly bodily: "sexual organs," "carnal knowledge," petals "veined like flesh drained of color." The flower seems almost human, and a little secretive.
The speaker's tone is curious and gently playful. The questions, "What is it trying to hide?" and "What secret pleasures prompt such incessant trembling?", sound like someone teasing the plant while also wondering at it. Then the mood shifts. The flower is bitter and toxic, yet deer eat it anyway. The short line "It wants to live" lands plainly and with real feeling. The ending is quiet and unsentimental: by midsummer the leaves simply melt back into the ground, a modest, natural fading.