Sandra Crouch
The Miracle
The way the bush beans begin
with curls and winding
our story grown from seed
not with the motion of bodies
meeting and meeting again
but inside the thick yellowing leaves
of the soon-potatoes, the flattened
shape of an animal, sleeping
A city garden holds no heavy
weight of danger, no fierce predator
but this gentle whorl of the feral cat
who wails at night and by day
rushes from our footsteps
like the ghost of our first child
We weren’t ready
so we held in our arms the air
and nodded gently like calyptras of poppies
their pointed fairy-caps peeling back
until their clasps pop open
like the brass jaw of my grandmother’s
coin purse, not a long sorrow
but this orange twirl, this slow unfurling
Our willingness like the wind
now rising bright and weighted with the glory
of the sun, our son, no single flower
but the miracle of purple
lantana blossoms covering the whole fence
with each of his steps
Sandra Crouch, MA, is a poet, artist, and letterpress printer living in Los Angeles, California with her husband and two children. Sandra’s poems appear or are forthcoming in Rust+Moth, SWWIM, and West Trestle Review, among others. Follow along at sandracrouch.com or on Twitter @iamsandracrouch.