A garden hose fell in love with a footstool.

It said C'mon baby, opposites attract.

We belong together, like fudge and onions.

The footstool wasn't happy in the mud.

It settled down, like it had been settling down

all its life.

Its tapestry skirts got lopsided and wet,

like a Victorian lady visiting the poor

who sits down where there is no chair.

The hose couldn't stay wound, it was that excited.

Flowers sprouted from the sides of the house

where the water sprayed, and nowhere else.

People whose feet were tired kept coming out to the garden

and poking the cabbages, seeing if they'd bear weight

like a sofa.  "Why can't you be more like a sofa?"

the footstool complained.

The garden hose felt love in all its arteries.

Big spurts of love, knocking over small dogs,

drenching every daddy's barbecue.

The neighborhood began to eat their hamburgers raw.

Stories like this always end with a garbageman.

The footstool drove away on the junk truck, headed

for Pittsburgh

or a field that was the opposite of Pittsburgh,

just one long loop of day and night weather

and no one to keep it awake with love

running out the soles of their shoes.