Perennials

Let us praise the ghost gardens

of Gary, Detroit, Toledo—abandoned

lots where perennials wake

in competent dirt and frame the absence

of a house. You can hear

the sound of wind, which isn’t

wind at all, but leaves touching.

Wind itself can’t speak. It needs another

to chime against, knock around.

Again and again the wind finds its tongue,

but its tongue lives outside

of its rusted mouth. Forget the wind.

Let us instead praise meadow and ruin,

weeds and wildflowers seeding

years later. Let us praise the girl

who lives in what they call

a transitional neighborhood—

another way of saying not dead?

Or risen from it? Before running

full speed through the sprinkler’s arc,

she tells her mother, who kneels

in the garden: Pretend I’m racing

someone else. Pretend I’m winning.