Jackie Homan

on a sunny day last May she called to tell me 

about the invasive honeysuckle bushes 

that had usurped her backyard

our backyard 

I imagined watching proud 

through her baby blue eyes 

as she dove into the monstrous shrubbery

deceptively pretty and sweet-smelling

and yanked with fifty-nine years of might 

uprooting them one by one

her voice giddies when she says 

in the newly created space 

she is cultivating a better home for butterflies and bees

she has plucked the perfect caterpillars 

shepherded them to safety 

some have already entered chrysalis 

and she cannot wait to see them break free and fly

by the next time I visit

they’ll have found home amongst her milkweed blooms