Why I Waited This Long to Tend the Garden

Because I miss the sprawl of strawberries. That audacity. The way
the April waxwings staggered in the juniper. Their bawdy, off-key lyrics.

By May, I still hadn’t learned to discern seedling from weed. I was fickle,
cared for the tendrils of melons and sweetpeas, the buds of broccoli and bluebells,

equally. Because I tied the strips of my husband’s blue work shirt to stakes in June
and I like them there. Though I knew the weight of the vines would bring them down

and the stakes would tip like crosses in an untended graveyard. See—the cotton strips
look like wild violets, from a distance. In July, I thought I would not have to ask

for forgiveness, if I did nothing. When I tended, I was over tender, or I tendered
a hand that wasn’t needed. There was no rain in August, and the ground was baked hard

as an urn for ashes. And I remembered there were boxes of cat ashes and bird bones
buried somewhere in the garden. But not exactly where. And watering ashes and bones

felt wrong. And I thought I wouldn’t be forgiven. Because it was September, and dahlias
wrapped themselves around the sunflowers’ knees. I felt for the dahlias, and I felt

for the sunflowers, too. Their slumped backs and bird-pecked heads. Because now
there are only the bones and ashes of a wild unflowering, and winter must tend the rest.