Her Garden
by
Joan Dugas

We walk the garden paths again, she and I,
that once we strolled in unchecked awe
of a hundred blossoms’ upturned faces.
From rows of moist amber soil
poked lines of beet greens and carrot tops
as polka-dotted butterflies nosed
from plant to plant. No more.

The beds are left untended now,
gnarled, like their owner’s tired hands.
See how she softly strokes a rosebud
whose leaves lift slightly in the summer breeze.
I cut the stem short for her breakfast tray
and we tour the weed-cluttered
stands of lilies, her arm wrapped in mine.