From nowhere, the asparagus 
hoists its obscene green spear 
up against the potted rose. Then later,  
springs its cloud of feathery foliage  
like some sophomore’s victory prank. 

What to say about these 
flouncing lace-clad floozies 
courting the proper ceramic rim? 
Do they shake to show a storm’s afoot? 
The bunched sky’s hooded shoals 
turn nasty gray, while a cold wind 
scuds the tattery petals of fatal blooms. 

No doubt the sly thing seeded from a berry 
that a robin dropped, or a jay, 
those birdy buccaneers that are prone 
to raid my raised beds. What this means: 
I’ll have to evict it from the pot next winter, 
in its bare-root dormancy, while it dreams
of twining the sunshine tootsies of the rose.

I’ll tuck it in among its older bedfellows,  
the blueberries, arugula, honey-peach Homeria 
on the nod. All in a horseshoe shape, for better luck.
They’ll need it. And I’ll need it too. Come spring, 
we can all rejoice and celebrate surviving 
another season of doubt and icy night.

And philosophize together about life’s vagaries
that fetch us up on unintended shores
where bedfellows strange and familial  
tune the random fiddles that we play  
to air the melodies we learn by growing older.