Poem to be Placed in the Middle of a Manuscript of Flower Poems, Written on a Wednesday, Garbage Day, in Normal, Illinois

 

Poem to be Placed in the Middle of a Manuscript of Flower Poems, Written on a Wednesday, Garbage Day, in Normal, Illinois

These poems are not about flowers.
Not about shortened stems of blue
forget-me-not sprinkled through the yard,
scarlet clover tall against
the long-bodied leap of the rabbit,

or wild garlic biting the mud.
Surely, these poems are about me,
a Normal woman bending to dig
out the nearly blossoming weed patch,
carrying it to the foot of the drive

in a paper sack in a fond belief
in a compost heap, sweet with decay,
on the careless edge of town. Rough
men with souls as delicate as mine
wheel on down the road. Bless them.