These leaves fell and

we couldn’t turn on the Weather Channel

for what was left of winter.

 

You might miss me.

I might love you

(in a finicky sort of way).

 

Your toes making molehills in the dirt,

burying the seeds of

a revolution (canned

for future potlucks, amassed

for future demonstration)

 

The stem,

plucked and wound

tightly around your ring finger,

a reminder for

the uses of dandelion:

 

liver tonic, cleanser,

merry-maker, garden wrecker,

annual.

 

You scraped soil

from split fingernails,

wiped pollen from the tip of your nose.

 

Common plant.

 

We might

tell this to the kids,

plant a rose bush

along the hedge.

 

*

 

next spring.

 

 

 

 

There are no role models for

girls in floral dresses,

soft spoken wallflowers,

asters late to bloom.

 

They struggle to button up

awkward fronts and

sideways glances down

zippered backs,

but they might as well eat buttercups

for all the good

a man’s attention will do them.

 

At night

in ballrooms and bars across the valleys

these Desert Stars

close up,

pull their delicate arms

over their bowed heads.

 

Few care to notice

a Dandelion in the yard.

Those who do say,

better to pull them up,

throw them over the fence.

 

*

 

 

 

 

 

The petals, blooming up from –

green bosom;

there, on the windowsill - potted, planted,

placed (uncultivated).  And buried,

awaiting the overthrow of soil;

a jack in the box, she

pedaled around for your amusement…

 

until, digging her elbows into the dirt,

leaning against the rim of her clay pot,

 

 

Her shoots, necking against the Chrysanthemum;

rosy cheeked, turned upwards to the Kalanchoe,

 

 

leaves curled into hips, broadened and stout;

last picked, and never invited to the garden party,