Winter Promises

Tomatoes rosy as perfect baby's buttocks, eggplants glossy as waxed fenders, purple neon flawless glistening peppers, pole beans fecund and fast growing as Jack's Viagra-sped stalk, big as truck tire zinnias that mildew will never wilt, roses weighing down a bush never touched by black spot, brave little fruit trees shouldering up their spotless ornaments of glass fruit: I lie on the couch under a blanket of seed catalogs ordering far too much. Sleet slides down the windows, a wind edged with ice knifes through every crack. Lie to me, sweet garden-mongers: I want to believe every promise, to trust in five pound tomatoes and dahlias brighter than the sun that was eaten by frost last week.