After a year the delicate basil
is stripped of its leaves overnight:
 
two fat green caterpillars
arched on the stems.
 
Cherry tomato that offered only
sour fruit in summer
 
fills with red sweetness
now that it’s cold.
 
Why do I bother
fretting the future?

 
For Mary Rennie, 1920-2018
 
A century-old brain rests 
inside the smoked glass shade
of the wrought iron lamp
which once belonged to Mary. 
I eat my dinner at her dining table, 
I sit on the Queen Anne chairs 
she expensively upholstered 
which I bought for little 
at her daughters’ yard sale, 
I put my feet up on her coffeetable, 
set a mug on her dropleaf. 
Out on the balcony a fuchsia droops 
on gold tile above metal legs 
supporting racks that once held 
bottles in her den. 
Evenings at my desk 
I read and write 
by the light of her smoked shade, 
sip tea while she flickers 
in the lamp’s dark base, 
suggests I have a glass 
of something stronger.
                        

Like a verdant clown 
the money tree sticks its head 
above the balcony rail,
sways in the afternoon breeze. 
For ten years it’s been 
my patron saint of solvency. 
It helped me find this nest,
according to the friend who 
gave the plant to me 
when it was just a baby
in a four-inch pot. Now 
it’s as tall as I am.
From this aerie 
I named treetop 
I looked into
the boughs of pines
until their murder 
by the gangs with chainsaws
left a panoramic view 
of neighbors. I preferred 
green-needled mystery.
Still, I see more mackerel clouds
and the plants prefer
the sun: citronella, basil, 
Cuban oregano, jade, plumeria.
We sit together in the dusk,
unfurl and welcome spiders.