flower legs

in a perfect world, i'd skip right from a house enveloped by a garden to living in the greenhouse itself. my neighbor friend had one, and sometimes we'd go out there just to nap in the tight, humid, virginia air. & in her backyard we'd sometimes find petrified wood & arrowheads in the heat of summer, when the fireflies swarmed & the trees grew heavy with white, cottony caterpillar cocoons; it was good living for a kid. and, out in the illinois countryside, where i'd spend a week each summer visiting, my grammy had a sunroom with a wicker chair so deep, it swallowed you up. i napped there too, in a patchwork quilt with her one-eyed, black & white cat, while crickets buzzed in the cornfields surrounding her little house. green lawns on hot days make me a somnambulist -- walking, it would seem, in a half-conscious dream. i still get sleepy just thinking about those rooms that brought the outside in.