Meyers-Briggs for Gardens

Tomatoes ripen in the shyness of the night,

burst their red (or yellow) in morning’s

“Pick me! Pick me!” demanding attention

like all newly ripened and ready—

vegetables, children, or fruit—

raspberries the tender first-borns,

zucchini lie content and grow

blimpish as the neglected child,

gaming days away in chip fed orgies.

No wonder we use the word “blush”

In describing freshness found

With the choicest of harvest pickings.

Meals should best match the eater

Before stomach cramps in confusion

Over mismatched temperaments.

Unworn Roses

You wouldn’t wear roses the day we bought Detroit—

the price was right for a surplus city

we thought we could fix up for the kids.

The roses, you said, were gaudy, gilding

thrown over your clutch of lilies.

It was really about the thorns

that spiked your fire and dulled the dream

you never shared in slaughtering prayers

which churched their way into sacrifice.

Prayers that rose—incense off the flames,

a scent to tickle the nostrils of God.

The roses you wouldn’t wear waited your day

and the thornless hope of restoration

when they, too, would beg for quiet aromas.

Recalcitrant Seeds

Deadheading blossoms sounds vicious,

like beheading—it’s got to be done

to halt seed pods from gaining control

and nature takes a reproductive course.

Fanatics are right; it’s all about sex—

step outside and plant sperm

clogs your sinuses with the suffering

of inter-species intercourse.

Dogs are blameless in adultery;

they don’t have thumbs to build houses.

Cain was a city dweller, one sin begetting another

and long after the stones went up,

the commandment’s measuring line

plumbed the walls of purity.

Indoors we gained dominion

promised in the garden that refuses

walls while blossoms bear rebellion.

Cocoons of Farthering

Dead blossoms of chrysanthemums

scatter the tomb floor searching

for the longing that kept alive desire

that drives the futuring of our context.

Farther and farther apart we grow—

wireless cocoons of connective alone.

I weep as flowers weep, dropping petals,

tears of yellow and orange and red,

waiting the brown’s dried sweeping

of contempt that creeps unnervingly.

Farther and farther apart we grow—

wireless cocoons of connective alone.

Only the pretty make for pictures,

leaving lumps of self portraits

made of arm’s length then scattered

for liking of unspoken derision.

Farther and farther apart we grow—

wireless cocoons of connective alone.