This month’s flower girl stops traffic

in the garden center parking lot

in tight Carhartts and Felco holster,

wiping a smear of soil from her cheek

with clay-encrusted fingers. Where’s she been

all winter? On some exotic playa

down under, collecting seaglass? Or here

all along, holed up in a rental off Oak Lane

with only a wood stove and cable, plotting

meticulous scenarios of perennial displays.