Secret Gardens

The audit files can wait.
Through his office window,
Rasmussen watches the cardinal visit the feeder,
cautious, one seed at a time.
He’s named her Scarlett (tells no one this),
keeps meticulous records:
arrival times, seed preferences,
the way she tilts her head before choosing.
Twenty years of processing returns,
but this half hour each afternoon,
waiting for Scarlett,
is what he protects with religious fervor.

Downtown, the restaurant critic
whose reviews can close kitchens,
whose palate discerns sixteen types of salt,
heats water for the sacred box.
Kraft, original recipe,
the powder orange as shame, as childhood.
Moreau stirs with the same attention
she brings to Michelin stars,
each forkful a time machine
to suburban Tuesdays,
mother working late,
the kitchen warm,
the world simple as noodles and cheese.

The Honorable Judge Reyes
locks her chambers, draws the blinds.
“Good morning, Miranda!” she trills
in perfect Snow White soprano
to the philodendron.
“And how is Brown v. Board today?”
She mists Marbury v. Madison
(a temperamental fern),
coos to Loving v. Virginia
in Cinderella’s lilting tones.
Thirty-seven plants,
thirty-seven landmark cases,
four Disney princesses on rotation.
Tomorrow she’ll sentence a man to twenty years,
but now she’s Aurora,
singing Roe v. Wade
back from the brink of root rot.

Dr. Delacroix, between bypasses,
pulls out crochet hooks and mint-green yarn.
“Stanley needs a new sweater,” she tells
the empty OR, measuring
the CT scanner’s circumference.
Seven years of dressing the machines:
Karl the MRI in burgundy,
Frances the X-ray in stripes.
The night staff has stopped asking questions,
just smiles when they find Stanley
sporting cable-knit.

Sergeant Volkov sets the table
with tactical precision:
Mr. Whiskers at twelve o’clock,
Princess Fluffbottom at three.
His daughter’s deployed now,
but the Saturday ritual remains.
“More tea, Admiral Spots?”
His baritone shifts octaves,
becomes the British lady bear:
“Delightful weather, isn’t it?”
The same conversations,
the same plastic cups,
the same love with nowhere to go.

In the particle lab, midnight,
Dr. Asante arranges the senate:
Rainbow Dash presiding,
Twilight Sparkle filibustering
about quantum mechanics.
Thirty years splitting atoms,
but this—the careful positioning
of vintage ponies debating healthcare reform—
this is what helps him sleep.
“The chair recognizes Senator Butterscotch,”
he whispers, adjusting her tiny stance.

Agent Singh’s bottom drawer:
a rainbow arsenal of glitter glue,
sorted by sparkle intensity.
After each raid, each arrest,
each life redirected,
she makes a card:
“You’re stronger than you know” in purple glitter,
“Tomorrow is a new page” in gold.
Leaves them on windshields,
bathroom mirrors,
tucked in library books.
Anonymous kindness
to balance the necessary hardness.

These are the secret gardens:
Rasmussen’s cardinal,
Moreau’s orange powder,
Reyes singing to her legal forest,
Delacroix’s medical knitwear,
Volkov’s eternal tea party,
Asante’s political ponies,
Singh’s glitter gospel.

In the space between who we must be
and who we are,
we plant these tender rebellions,
these small sanctuaries
where the heart refuses to wear a suit,
where love finds its own peculiar logic,
where we save ourselves
by saving something
no one else would think to save.