Garden Gods

Leis festoon my Queen Elizabeth

this morning, so she is both pink and coral,
one unexpectedly. Who would do

such a thing? The contractor next door,
him with the hemi? The SEC lawyer,
retired from niggling? A stranger,

hell bent on whimsy. Saints preserve us
from the drunken fey, the determined oddball
hoping to go Wilde and run to fat.

I think it was Zeus himself, eagled
as he has been bulled and pissed, leaving a gay
reminder that gods are not solemn,

except when they want something special—
grilled bones, sobbing virgins, grim obedience—
and prefer a boner to doctrine.

Bees back off from the paper hanger,
annoyed by mimesis and crude deception.
They own a queen way too fat to care.