And who was the patient soul that made it all grow?

In this concrete hell of a sunny dream

I wished them all to be as beautiful as me

To die and wither away

But no, no, no, she isn’t gone

She never was beautiful

This is a travesty, an unnoticed tragedy

It’s not the sort of thing that happens to her

And to stifle behind lace curtains

To hide from the sunlight because

I know I can’t feel it on my skin

Is my name

She planted perennials

Tempting fate to salt the earth

She watches it all die and beautify

Then plants again

And who would plant in concrete lines?

I did once, long ago

I, the dark seer, planted annuals

And she replanted them every year

So how can this scorched earth dazzle me again?

How can the lost child

Bask in the sun

On the bare concrete?

How can the world be so

Heart-wrenchingly beautiful?

Twisted and burned and all alone

Without her to tend the garden?