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Minnie Rose Lovgreen signing her books 

at Bainbridge Arts and Crafts, May, 1975, 

Bainbridge Island, WA

She skipped lunch to work the garden.

Spring had been late.  Poppies

had self-seeded through lettuce.

She tied up the pole beans

with saved twine, wilted

weeds in piles

to be dug in.

 

Fingers crusted, she worked

till the sun was butter churning,

roses funneled wild from all gardens known,

and she crumpled like a burlap sack.

Sunstroke, she thought.  But sun

had nothing to do

with the flowering in her blood.

 

After the funeral

we are all

invited to tea

at her house.

It is a fine day.

The sky is blue.

Not a cloud.

 

On our laps

the teacups pose.  Geraniums

scream from the flowerpots.

Outside, in late sun,

chickens take dust baths.

Already the gravensteins

hang in tight green knots.

 

Old woman,

I brought you roses and baby’s breath

in a mason jar

one week before you died.

Past the oxygen tubes

you tried to tell me again

they had been your bridal bouquet.

                      -----------Nancy Rekow