Topiary Mendacity

When I left her months ago in a halo of
October fire, I extracted a promise from
myself that before the first daffodil
intruded into the warming yard that I’d
prune her back, shape her limbs into a
sphere before her buds began to be
about their jostling business, to dress her stage
so that her entrance would command both eye
and sigh. But I have yet again confessed

my status as a liar, and I see
her branches ready to unwrap and stun the
living air — I’ve tarried much too long and
now if shears and loppers sculpt her sides, the
rawness of her beauty will drop down
upon the ravenous ground and she will be
displayed without her flame. So empty promises
have guaranteed that she will stand adorned
but in diminished, asymmetric shame.

~ S. K. Orr