David Rosenheim – Pineapple Sage

Behind my right ear
I hear the choked chirp
of a hummingbird

the helicopter patter of her wings
as she extracts serum
from the narrow chutes

of pineapple sage
growing red and bombastic
in an unkempt corner of the garden

fork-tongued leaves of artichoke
crowd the weathered arm
of your Adirondack chair

sunlight on the
side of your face

bramble towers overhead
unfurling white blooms
like peace flags for embattled bees

bored as ever
you put down your book

the chard we planted last winter
is running now, a great effort skyward
its clockwork belling in the time to seed

you have abandoned your chair
shutters slap against the windblown door

I inhale as the evening fog sweeps in
for too many years I have not tended this garden
for so long I have paced my heart

Is this what has driven you away
matching my distance inch for inch?
we are both complicit

Let’s agree now
to dirty our fingernails
in the business of love

To squish the slugs
chase the cabbage butterflies
reeling upward from

Our small square of sky
let us nurse the worm bed
for it is the soil and the bread