Antheia wanders my garden, trailing gold
And honey and myrrh in her wake
She attended a goddess or two in her time
What is she doing here?

You miss your youth, the love you used to
So enjoy, the sharing of bodies, the
Mingling of dreams
This year your tiger lilies will bloom
Early and long and I will guard them
From Artemis’s deer — as you should
Although I know you won’t
You are as much hers still as any of ours

I feel the loss of my mother, so long ago
But my father’s death makes it sting again
On his birthday a tulip of a red so dark it’s
Nearly black blooms where no tulip ever has

He loved them so and I loved him
My flowers grew for him nearly as well
As they do for me — he loved the land
Even though air called him, flight more
Crucial than working the earth
I will put a gerbera daisy in the same place
On your mother’s birthday, where no flower
Has ever been, this year two will grow

Why are you with me?
Why wouldn’t I be with you?
Is this because I bought the painting of you?
It made your hands black
Why has the black paint never completely dried?
Because I am renewal, and the best soil is black
You’re not one of my primary goddesses
Or so you tell yourself
And yet I think of you often
I know

My body is old and tired, illness makes me
Somber and sad — I ran from the idea
Of being with anyone, freedom more important
Yet now, I think of my parents, fifty years together

My mistresses feel your pain, Hera for never
Having known such fidelity, Aphrodite for
Knowing you understood but never
Chose the longer promise of her offers
I, too, am free to roam, so I understand you
I will give you two irises, yellow because
You love that color and the flower means as much
As the tiger lilies did — dear, buried memories
They will defy the deer and rain and time
The smaller will die first, as your mother did
The taller will have to wait, but eventually joins her
You will know I put them there, for you have my touch
Even if you lack your father’s will to work the earth

My garden is gone, I moved to a smaller place
You could put flowers on the balcony
I dream of tiger lilies and irises
I am teaching you, for your next life
Of putting my hands in dirt, of bringing life forth
You love tuberose and plumeria and white ginger lily
In the liminal space before I wake, I smell tropical flowers
We’ll plant them all, even if we have to build a greenhouse

This room is golden with afternoon light
The machine beeps incessantly, heart growing weaker
As I close my eyes, I smell honey and myrrh
And dream of greenhouses

[Gerri Leen is a Pushcart- Rhysling- and Dwarf Star-nominated poet from Northern Virginia who’s into horse racing, tea, and collecting encaustic art and raku pottery. She has poetry published by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Dark Matter, The HWA Poetry Showcase, Dreams & Nightmares and others and has just published her first poetry collection Unwilling: Poems of Horror and Darkness. Visit gerrileen.com to see what she’s been up to.]