In a Friend’s Garden

for Kristi Nelson

by James Crews

“I want to be here to see

the poppies open,” my friend says,

telling me why she never travels

anymore in the middle of spring.

We each hold one of the heavy buds

whose petals already ache to break

free and spread, bursting red at the seams.

The mulch is warm beneath our feet,

and sunlight shimmers pink in the

shifting leaves of the Japanese maple.

I keep hearing her words—I want

to be here—and feel something new

leaning toward the light inside me too,

some seed of need just to be rooted

right where I am for each small pleasure,

every rippling wave of sorrow.

She wraps an arm around me, and we 

go inside for tea. There is nothing

to escape from, but our own desire

to escape at all.

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Printed with kind permission of James Crews