Trailer Park Garden
by Alejandro Aguirre
Stevan Dohanos, 1951
The move South? That was John’s idea.
He hums “I’m in the Mood for Love”
as he baits his line. His missus soaks
her garden in hopes that the foxgloves,
remnants of her Bay State, will survive.
They won’t. The sods might last,
though, invading the beach like waves.
John's pilfered a conch from this coast
to make a call, later, “on the shell phone.”
His missus prefers another type of pretend:
never dialing friends, so she can assume
they’re still alive. She smells the scent
her college dormmate wore—
a dry-wood—half a century ago:
reminder enough. She waters
the foxgloves. Her smile hangs low.
Another woman unhangs towels
like pictures, as a man buffs
his Chevy Deluxe. A stoic flamingo
stretches its iron legs. Just as tough,
a snowbird, in his beak a cigar, carries
letters from the north, where birch
grows icicles in lieu of leaves.
Won’t read them, nestled in his perch.