Summer Garden
by Kathy Lohrum Cotton

I inhale this brilliant summer
with my eyes

         Freesia, fuschia, black-eyed Susan

and read her heavy-handed message
on the breeze.

        Gardenia, jasmine, peony

“I’m beautiful, desirable,” her fragrant note says.
“I’m fertile, waiting.”

        Coneflower, columbine, coralbells

With the ardent expectancy of butterfly and bee,
I come to the garden,
remembering again how to fall in love.

        Phlox, foxglove, coreopsis
        and roses—oh, so many roses.

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