Hostas

It is late July, and the time of the summer for hosta flowers.

They seem to be everywhere, their reach exceeding their grasp as their thin stalks hang across the walks

Like the arms of street urchins, too close and too many.

The plants themselves are overfed guests, spreading out like sultans--

What can one say to such as the hostas,

Presumptuous fillers of high summer?

I prefer the black-eyed susans, with their weedy bodies, keeping to the edges and corners

Like girls not asked to dance,

And yet their yellow faces fill me with an easy joy.

If I could, I would sit with them, right there in somebody's garden.

We would wave in whatever breeze there was,

Reminding July that there will be Autumn,

And snarking to the hateful hostas

That their mother

Dresses them

Funny.

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