Where Zinnias Grow

Walk with me behind the house

to the place

where the zinnias grow.

It’s there where I first sowed 

seeds of grief,

watching and waiting.

Hand-tilled earth.

It was when they began to bloom

that I felt your death

from within.

---

I carried you in my body 

for nine weeks.

God used you to change me.

I held parts of you in my hands 

and wept.

A flood of salty tears.

God must have asked the angels for more bottles.

---

The sun shone down

yesterday

as I watched tiny hands 

entangled in my zinnias.

It’s bittersweet, you know,

I still wonder what it would be like

to hold your tiny hand too.