She taught me to speak to gardens,
showed me the faces of sunflowers,
pinched the bases of snapdragons,
released their clenched creativity,
poetry flowing through the cobblestone.

She taught me to speak to gardens,
picked daisies by the base of their
stems, crafted them into tiaras,
to make herself the queen of ivy,
the princess of the hollyhocks climbing
up her unpainted picket fence.

She taught me to speak to gardens,
so I might decode the dogwood
I saw wilting in her eyes …

She taught me to speak to gardens,
but the sunflowers, the snapdragons,
the cobblestone, the daisies, the ivy,
the hollyhocks, and the picket fence …
the garden only spoke with her.