THE COWBOY & THE LADY

THE COWBOY & THE LADY
(A GARDEN MISHAP)


This happens, let’s say, in June
on, oh, any day the extroverted sky
might with this shy earth
either quarrel or honeymoon,

when, stepping out, it’s not unusual
to view near intricate azaleas
hand-in-hand boys and girls,
such hybrids any observer must puzzle;

that’s when, to her front lawn’s fringe,
the cowboy, bold as a Ford,
drives to court and spark
so irrepressibly that her narcissi cringe,

and though she’s attired modly,
his lady (fatuously dated),
bent toward sensible renaissance flower beds,
trowels red clay to sketch another century.

When he sees top-heavy tulips
(to her, carpe diem’s darlings)
he’s irked as by painfully bookworming kids;
he prefers his desert, infinite, stripped,

so he strokes his hood’s even polish,
he taps his blinding boots.
She shrinks toward Campion’s formal tunes
as he whistles country, refuses to notice

how he snapped under one boisterous heel
her solitary peony.
Why does she hunt, melancholic, for band-aids?
Some incongruities spring can’t heal.


Jack Hayes
© 2010