I buried my heart in a hole in the ground
and waited for you to come dig it up.
I watered it at first with water,
then with whiskey and beer,
and all that came of it was weeds –
weeds with pretty yellow flowers
that had me asking what weeds really were,
but textbook weeds still in yet.
It impatiently beat at first,
reaching out to God to bring the proper gardener.
Then the beating slowed only with sporadic flourishes.
That heart swallowed a diamond and waited.
It swallowed such sorrow and waited.
It swallowed rock and roll and waited.
It swallowed a slow-played banjo,
and your voice, and a sad song,
and your beautiful body in memory,
and it waited.
The spasms subsided.
The heart got slow and dirty.
Life seemed impossible, and at an impasse.
Then I dug my heart up and placed it back in my chest
and months later I passed the concrete-covered corner
where I once buried my heart, and you carved our initials,
and valiantly pushing through a crack wise a brambly vine
from which later sprang a blood-red rose.