In all this long back garden of vegetables
and blossoming roses, a fat healthy thistle grows
sturdy, spiky and green. Atop one
of three green bulbs on reaching stalks, a colour
bursts through, a colour like light purple or dark pink –
a first blossom among the green. It is so vibrant
in this autumn sunlight it attracts a bee
who lands and buzzes, turns around
to another angle and buzzes again, and repeats
this manoeuvre a few times, specifically three,
then flies off. I am standing here, watching,
as my wife talks about what we should do
to the garden, how the cat over the fence
is fouling our vegetable patch and not covering
its own shit well enough. Wow, I say, wow,
look at this. And she turns to see me fascinated
with a thistle bush and its attendant bee.
Yes, I left it there, she comments, I know
the funny things you like, thistles and things.