Rose King

I'm out with the wheelbarrow mixing mulch. A mockingbird trills in the pine. Then, from higher, a buzz, and through patches of blue as the fog burns off, a small plane pulls a banner, red letters I can't read— but I do see, over the fence, a man in a sky-blue shirt walking his dog to the beach. He says he missed it, will keep an eye out. Four barrows of mulch around the blueberry bushes, I'm pulling off gloves, and he's back, beaming. "It says, I LOVE YOU, MARTHA. Are you Martha?"