Love in the Hedges

We meet in the hedges,
two small hearts under all that thorn,
each carrying enough warmth
to save the other from winter,
each carrying enough pain
to make winter seem safer.

So we hedge.

I say maybe
when I mean come closer.
You shrug
when you mean stay.

We qualify our wanting,
trim it neat at the edges,
keep every feeling
on its proper side of the fence.

We hedge our bets on love,
plant one foot toward each other
and leave the other ready to run.

Still, at night,
the shrubbery trembles.

There we are,
two hedgehogs in the leaves,
trying to solve the old problem
with our bodies:

how much warmth
can be taken
before the prick,

how much distance
can be kept
before the cold.

After heartbreak
I became good at gardening.

I clipped every reaching thing.
Let no branch cross another.
Lined the path with careful noes.
Called the clearing peace.

But love is unruly growth.

A root does not know
where one garden ends.
A branch reaches
before it remembers the shears.

And perhaps we are like that too,
capable of so much warmth
and so much pain,

forever rustling in the hedges,
wanting to be held
with bodies built to warn:

careful,
careful,

come closer.