5/21/12

Assembly Required
By Terry Jude Miller


In one of Tony Hoagland's poems
he writes about a dogwood losing its mind.
That tree whispers its madness
to jasmine in our backyard.

The vines crawl up the trellis
in a path of lunacy and scream
the delicate dialect of starred
white flowers and perfume.

My wife places a box
on the patio concrete
containing an assemble-yourself bronze fire pit.
We rip the box apart, to find another box inside,
then rip that box apart. She,
being the more mechanically-inclined of us,
holds the tools as I hand her the pieces
while telling her the worn joke
about remembering how to screw.

When we finish the assembly work,
we are not amazed that the fire pit
looks exactly like the image on the box.
We've spent twenty-six years putting
together and breaking things, so
we've gotten pretty good doing both.

She stands next to me
as we study the fleur di lis design
on the rim. She says,
"Do you think it's too warm
for a fire tonight?"

She's grown to expect either poetic
or smart ass responses from me
so I try to create one that's a little of both,
"It's never too hot for a fire at night."

She nods her head once, then takes my left hand
in both of hers, smiles, then coos,
"I suppose you're right."

On cue the sun dips behind
the neighbor's two-story colonial,
where the lights are never on.

The kiss is sweet and tender,
she places her palm against my cheek,
just the way I like it.

In our embrace, I look over her shoulder
to see Hoagland's dogwood whispering
to the potted lilies, pregnant with
tight green buds waiting for the evening's fire.


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Terry Jude Miller's Bio: Terry Jude Miller is a Juried Poet of the 2011 Houston Poetry Fest. His award winning poems have been published in dozens of poetry publications. His books are available at bn.com and amazon.com. Miller is a retired college professor of eMarketing.