An Empty Greenhouse

 

 

One step backward and the ghost

of winter embraces us although

it’s July and the greenhouse

has coughed up its riot of annuals.

The chill rumples our senses.

 

Petunias, sweet peas, alyssum,

zinnia, lantana, nasturtiums

have left pollen prints everywhere.

Their absence makes a crime scene,

but who can we blame for selling

 

flowers too vivid to last long?

The ghost of winter suggests

that a new thought of planting

looms a few months ahead of us,

repopulating the greenhouse

 

with seedlings rich with ambition.

The winter ghost is perennial

although it droops in summer heat

and doesn’t respond to watering.

We step forward and for a moment

 

free ourselves of the haunting.

But we like being reminded

that the seasons lean on each other

like old men swapping anecdotes,

eager to hear something new.

 

Claw-Footed

 

In front of an antique shop

squats a claw-footed bathtub

filled with soil and rugs of moss,

 

a plush experience awaiting

anyone brave enough to strip

here in the village June glare

 

and join the many naked ghosts

plunging like lovesick dolphins.

Maybe someone will purchase

 

the tub and refit it for water

and varied sexual writhing.

But what of the turf and foliage?

 

Can’t dump them on the sidewalk.

The tub must go as a unit,

given the healthy state of the moss,

 

which would weep if uprooted.

The price tag: six hundred dollars,

complete with graveyard plantings.

 

I’d rather just imagine the ghosts

of Renoir nudes flaunting

their billowing flesh and roiling

 

in a passionate tub of suds.

The world was cleaner when no one

thought of planting Irish moss

 

where people bared themselves to bathe

with all their shameless innocence

burning in their upturned smiles.