Self Love

In this actual garden, lush with verdant seedlings

centered in fecund peat, moist ritual spring mounds

swelling with late summer portent,

my knees are encrusted with disgorged weeds.

Abandoned work gloves mean dirty hands, gritty nails.

Truly something I can sink into: my whole body, my whole earthy self.

Dusk descends, coerces me out of the garden, to the kitchen sink.

With cleansing tenderness, soap swirls sensually in my hands,

disrobing dirt and sweat with a stream of rushing abandon.

It is time: too long in coming, that is true.

First, I dry these rough hands with the lustiest of cotton.

Then cradle the phone with the long lingering message of your hunger for me.

Next, this latest act of self love: with budding pleasure,

I press the erase button.

(cc) Karen G. Johnston