The Truth About Tigers

Mild winter has left the backyard
in a kind of limbo.
Too much shade,
last fall’s rain still pooled
in the cracks of the stone patio.

Without enough sun to argue back,
the moss moves in,
slow and confident,
turning the stones a patient green
that feels permanent.

I make a note: late spring.
When the pressure washer comes out
and does what it does best—
a loud, indiscriminate erasing,
as if nothing ever lived there at all.