Jared Pearce

In Love with a Gardener

She won’t remove the cabbage bug,
But handles every fanning leaf,
Stretching down into the blossom’s core
Where it sleeps, curled in glutenous dream.

I pick it out and offer it to the birds—
indelicate creatures roaming the greens,
the beaks stab and stab again, missing
often for that one direct hit through the heart.