Within her green garden, our hedged veranda
filled with buckets of lilies, sweet herb pockets,
a sunburnt chandelier dimming in the breeze—
Our garden with hydrangeas, and thistle vines,
and azaleas in phantom fuchsias, though
if only we could still sew posy wreaths.
Rings around Margaret, May forgotten petals
to help settle her tummy. Glad, then
perhaps she could water back the seeds.
Margaret sits in the mourning, and so I join her
birdwatching, among the soft plot’s dying green,
the nightshade she’d madly weed.
Days when it rains, we sip white jasmine tea, steep
it with cannabis oils, honeys and summer leaves,
poperies, perhaps her secret dried poppies.
Across our canopy, the sad salt wound of away;
seas, Margaret and me, growing crooked under day—
below the drapings of fall’s leaves,
Margaret can’t feel winter in me, and I think
she quit watering what already died. But come spring
she might breathe back alive— free, reborn at peace.
Photo Credit: narghee-la Flickr via Compfight cc
Alexandra Meehan
Alexandra Meehan is a neurodivergent poet and poetry editor residing in Gainesville, Florida. Alexandra earned her BA in English from the University of South Florida in Creative Writing.She has mentored lyricists and has worked as a professional writer and as a creative director. Alexandra enjoys watching foreign films, cultivating carnivorous plants, and painting. She is enamored by wordplay and has a lifelong obsession with Emily Dickinson. Alex's work has appeared in Feminine Collective and Rhythm & Bones Lit. She has a forthcoming poetry book. Follow Alexandra on Twitter @LexMeehan
