Between Love and a Hard Place
Just days after he moved his
young bride into the house, he went
on a rampage, chopping, digging,
eradicating anything that flowered,
all the perennials planted years ago
by his grandmother:
peonies and poppies, hollyhocks and
grape hyacinths, an entire fence row
of heirloom tea roses, even a small grove
of mature pie-cherry trees, all because his new
wife hated bees. He hacked out every blooming
plant, save the grass and a prize snowball bush
in the front, spared only by his mother,
planted stock-steady between the bush
and the hedge clippers, bearing folded arms
and a death stare. That stand off, the beginning
of the end. Some months later, as she
loads her things into her Daddy’s pickup,
he sweats and scowls out over the sun-scorched
lawn, praying for rain, longing
for the shade of his grandmother’s trees.