Secret Midtown Garden
By LindaAnn Loschiavo 

Our first apartment bordered ugly Hell's
Kitchen, a place for hanging your head out
The window, yelling for "police, police!"
 

The back door was my savior, leading me
To jade insertions of a picket fence
That hid a missing piece of Paradise,
Green growing something quite unlike itself.
 

Here: rose aroma heavy in blue air,
Pink heliotrope lovely as a laugh,
Mature hydrangeas, honey in their cheeks,
Green eyefuls powering up two lives when
The wormy world of midtown leaves the mind
Without its moorings.Secret is our yard,
And lion-lit for us alone, as bold
As some unanswered prayers — — survivor's way.
When he complains — — "Always outdoors!" he'll say,
"Bent, knees-down!" — — I plead debts I owe the day.