The sunflowers stand nine feet tall, two inches thick at the bottoms, reaching up, up, up, green, green, green, then yellow, bursts like fireworks, red-gold centers, off-center, the petals on one side one-and-a-half times as long as on the other. They're smirking.The tallest, biggest one with the most puckered green mouths not yet exploding open, is leaning toward the street, heavy, a thick arm, leaning under its own weight. I drove a small stake into the ground on the other side and tied a piece of brown yarn near the bottom, above the bottom leaves, big green heart-shapes with holes in them where the fuzzy black-and-orange worms have taken liberties, made snacks of the greenery. I pulled the yarn taut, tied it in a bow on the other side of the stake, leaned the giant flower back toward the yard, back into the garden.
Rain came throughout the day, a heavy shower brought a flurry of ice pellets, little flat marbles clear and cold, sparkling on the ground, rat-a-tatting on the earth, the tops of cars, the sidewalk, the black top street, my back. I was out snipping flowers--not sunflowers, the zinnias growing up at the bases of the sunflowers, bright zinnias, pale zinnias, variegated zinnias, yellow, red, orange, pink and dusty rose, all the colors of the red end of the spectrum, in fact, even purple, but not blue or green. All leaning together, swaying in the breeze, flowing like children at their mother's tattered apron.
Across the street a house is empty, the windows are open, workers are fixing it up, getting it ready for new tenants. In the front yard a matte black mailbox with its shiny red flag down, is leaning awkwardly back, like a drinker doing a shot, like a drunk man falling back on his thin black leg. One leg on the mailbox, not nearly as big as the stalks on the sunflowers, barely enough to hold it upright, not in the moist earth from all this rain.
At the end of the day, the brown yarn is slack, the big sunflower leans another way, not going along with my plan. It's like she wants to get up and walk away, down the street to another yard where there aren't any flowers, where the last of the pomegranate flowers are falling like bright red drops of blood to the ground.
More red like tomatoes, tomatoes ready to be stewed, dinnertime in the neighborhood. The neighbors are having a dinner party with lots of guests; somebody parked in front of the garden, in front of the sunflowers. We met some of those guests the last time they had a dinner party. Last time, we were invited. It was a last minute thing. It always is. One guy whose name I don't recall spotted me as he walked out onto the front porch with a beer, into the front yard, between the trees. He spotted me and leaned back to say hello, tipped his beer in my direction. I responded. I don't feel like going to a dinner party tonight. I didn't say that. I didn't have to. I wasn't asked. We smiled, he went about his business; the men laughed on the front porch, the women laughed inside. Their laughter made them lean back, lean back to laugh, leaning, leaning, further; careful or you'll fall off your chair!
I looked around at the green yard, the flowers, the green beans, peppers, black earth, vibrant green. I feel good, full of the life around me, feel myself leaning forward, leaning, leaning toward the garden.
