Hacking Back the Roses
I take certain pleasure each year
in snapping the ragged thorny necks of my own roses. My children
are gone, but my neighbor
is not. Pleasure is a complicated thing. That’s why I like them, the roses—petal and thorn. The neighbor—the roses
and the fence. They grow high enough to bother him, wind-blown petals
in his weeds, till I hack them back
so it all can rise again in spring—
sweet, wild spite. My fence, as high as law allows. I put in skylights for their simple light.
to keep his anger a-simmer.