Nobody knows exactly how it works,
The spasm in the heart that makes one face
particular. Nobody knows why it hurts
when singular passion falls from grace.
If the heart is a garden, nobody hoes,
or cultivates, or even pulls the weeds.
Lovers can never quite master the tools
of their own gardening.
Nobody needs
what nobody planted on purpose, except
when a flower turns up, uninvited, unplanned,
sowed last season by a careless hand,
kicking through mulched conversations,
pale petaled, mud-flecked, demanding
its share of the sun.
The garden only is undone
when nobody knows how love works underground,
and everyone thinks it’s either lost or found.