We’re frantic, trying to save them,
our summer’s offspring, our garden children.

We’re cloaking the roses with deer hunter ponchos,
spreading old denim shirts on pumpkins,
capping Swiss chard with grocery store bags.
Maybe — can’t go there but we will — we’ll sneak out
Heather’s prom dress to shield a squash vine.

The neighbors recoil at our refugee draping.
Who cares! We’ll pretend we’re rich eccentrics,
beyond the rules of normal behavior.

We’re hauling in pots, that begonia, this foxglove,
a coleus now in an armchair. 

The cats, displaced, are spooked.
We’re their mewling hiss, not their meow.           

Begging forgiveness, out the door we go,
on one more rescue mission.

This poem was originally appeared in the Wisconsin Poets' Calendar.          
Used here with the author’s permission.