This man and his wife, happily married
for over thirty years, planted a garden
down the middle of the mattress of their raft-size bed.
They slept so well amidst the vines and flowers
they let the garden spread across the bedroom floor.
Soon butterflies and bees had arrived,
so the husband put a bird feeder in the tomato patch,
a bird bath on the bench at the foot of their bed.
These old people whose children had lives in distant cities
started making love again, started sleeping deeply,
waking up refreshed, and remembering their dreams.
They decided to plant the whole house in vegetables
and flowers. Soon they’d be able to harvest
their dinners without leaving home.
All their rooms grew fragrant with love and blossoming.
When friends visited, they marveled at the old couple’s
energetic happiness, but they couldn’t see
the fountain or the swimming hole the wife had installed
where the bath used to be. Neither could their children
or even their grandchildren. The swimming hole reminded
the couple of an underground spring they’d swum
naked in, so long ago it felt like a dream,
a dark cave full of clear water and colorless fish
that nibbled their bodies like kisses as they swam out
to the center in the darkness that was lit by a single
hole in the ceiling, through which sunlight streamed.
This poem first appeared in The Halo of Bees: New and Selected Poems, 1990-2022.
—
Michael Hettich has published a dozen books of poetry, most recently The Halo of Bees: New and Selected Poems, 1990-2022. His work has appeared widely in journals as well as in a few anthologies. His awards include The Brockman-Campbell Prize from the North Carolina Poetry (for Halo), the inaugural Hudson-Fowler Prize from the University of Central Arkansas, a number of Fellowships from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, and the Tampa review Prize. He lives in Black Mountain, NC.
