the purple daggers of
autumn curl like fingers
in honey do they not

move everyone who
sees them isn’t that
what nettie means

by not keeping
a meat thermometer
by her stove just knows

the fast-paced strings
of her hands her touch is
so music I walk around

full-throated about it
all the time her roses
making sudden saints

out of everyone who
drives by them when
they pull in she tells

them she cannot tell
them how it happens
they just grow

like that even in
winter there’s always
another baby on the way

that will hurt to
look at on my phone
this time it is my own

sister’s her wife tried
but it didn’t work
nettie held her

like she has held all
of us even when she
thought it wasn’t right
 

—JC Andrews

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