Now I look at the garden,
At the garden. They say I had
A green thumb. Now it grows like
The bittersweet vine, this way
and that, on a bed of bracken.

I used to go out to the, garden,
The birds and I in the garden.
The word "cystic" has a garden
Of meanings. Can you smell
The peppermint, the basil,
the marjoram?

             Mother said
I must have done something
Wrong in another life. Did I hurt
Some babe a thousand years ago?
She said I didn't love Jesus enough,
Did I hurt Jesus two thousand years ago?
Pray enough, she says. I pray now,
I pray now and my prayers wind
like maidenhair.

                  Fibrosis.
Daddy says I once had a nice body, bewitching eyes.

There are mockingbirds in the boxwood below
The forget-me-not. I once lay on the earth
Smelling the earth, the wild oats, the moon
blossom, a passion flower. Did I do wrong,

To love the earth so? I used to go out,
                  To the Garden.

--- Cynthia Weiss