Lessons on gardening

You teach me everything there is to know
about love, and crayons, and the right way to sing in the shower (with moxie)

insisting this revelation: that I can be butt naked, yet hidden

or that every day I really am beautiful, even if I don’t see it

that spiders may be icky, but they still deserve a chance
and if you open the door, a newspaper becomes a gentle ferry to a new world

that the word “hate” has more than four letters, so many more

and that sunrise isn’t inevitable, I learn the hard way
when you leave for work before I wake, and the whole day is one long twilight

that I have to eat lunch if I skip breakfast

I’m stunned to hear that monsters still live under the bed, yes-huh
even after twenty-nine years you still run and hop when the lights are off

that hot sauce is a perfectly acceptable thing to keep in a purse

or that dogs are not good company when I stay up all night writing
and you lay alone, worried I might get lonely (never the other way around)

that I’m not, and never will be, truly alone at all, this you vowed

that something can be even more beautiful the more I see it
I’ve seen you millions and millions of times

that if I spend all my time worrying about the ceremony, I’ll miss the symphony

and there’s a right way and a wrong way to bite

that love is just another kind of garden
and you can never have enough plants in the house.