Lemon Cucumbers

Gardening, you know
when lemon cucumbers
are ripe
by the usual signs-
a yellowish tinge
and the taste in the salad.

Also,
when they begin to
speak French. And Italian.

You hear them
kissing Summer goodbye,
beginning
their small poems
in its lingering warmth.

At the tip of the latest growth
the vines hold
gold-yellow blossoms,

their own shapely
conclusions-
perfect odes,
bright testaments.

They say:
We bloom not for
ourselves alone.

Therefore
love enters the garden.