“I snip because I am”—attributed to Edward Scissorhands

Today’s post features the poem The Topiarist´s Wife by Robert Seatter. It is paired with the above paper sculpture. This dress honors Thomas Jefferson’s return from France, bringing geraniums to America. It also nods to Jane Austen for whom gardens provided outdoor settings for her characters to meet romantically. The paper parasol is adorned with geraniums, and she holds a seed box for her American-inspired garden. This era empowered women to garden themselves, as seen in books like Gardening for Ladies.

“Oops!”—The most dreaded word in a topiarist’s vocabulary

Up close, she saw the hornbeam
as leaf and shadow, shadow
and leaf, counted with precision
each nick and cut, the industry
of his fingers in the early summer hours
before she´d ever left his bed.
Stepping backwards she caught
at specific shapes before her eyes:
head of a bird, blade of a wing,
what his mind could make
out of the cool suburban air,
serration, perforation. At the arch
before the walkway, she heard
the green screech of a peacock,
saw tail fan open, plume on plume.
But it was from the upstairs windows
that she observed in shadow
his whole unknowable menagerie:
the gryphon sprawled in foreign
desire, the clipped vault
of the unicorn rising above,
beyond, their garden wall.

Yesterday, I cut my finger on a nail, while working on the back porch. It was a bloody mess.