The Secret Life of Gardeners
My gardener of fourteen years
has a stern unsmiling wife and grown children
that I used to know well.
I set his morning coffee on the terrace table
and there is some secret
twining through the dense thunbergia vine
that causes the flowers
to nod their heads.
Later, the man who does not know I watch
drinks his morning coffee grown tepid in the cup,
coughs gently (or is it a laugh?) behind the hand
that cradles the telephone,
sly smile betraying a secret love
as clearly as the small child
who sometimes accompanies him to work.
Some senora’s, he tells me,
but the child
has his eyes and solid legs,
his shy manner,
lives with his mother and her husband,
but sits on my steps with a sugar cookie––
betraying no more secrets
on purpose
than his father does.
(This is an extensive rewrite of a poem written three years ago. Since this is the fourth time I’ve written to this prompt in three years, it seems fair to do a rewrite on this round!)
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 