POEM: Garden Gnome

In Jennifer & Scott’s garden there lies much beauty
& a garden gnome with beach-colored eyes
With a bell shaped hat & a shell shaped nose.

You should know that garden
gnomes are people too, my friend.

They make their homes among swag-shouldered mushrooms.

There is lust in their plaster eyes,
& a pale-faced beaming to far-off lands:

They wish they could saddle butterflies &

leave behind the backyard gossip, this
Endless August with its sticky teeth & humid breath.

Often the scud of evening skies cloud their Sumatran
Coffee like cream, sweetened with a pinch
Of the sugar that comes from mornings imagined.

They sip coffee knowing nothing of failure
or blind disappointment.

“Nothing can hold me back now!” they whisper
To just the stillness, to an ever expanding plume of squid ink.