Garden
The following poem is a brief selection from our Fall/ Winter 2019 print issue, accompanied by an audio recording of the poet reading their work.
Garden
The morning after his sudden death,
I walk barefoot on a dewy path
to my garden on the hill past
a creek where I pick up a grass
snake that coils my finger, flicking
his red, black-tipped tongue before slithering
toward the signal of spittlebug larvae
growing within gobs of frothy
foam. If I had not watched
him vanish among the runners of strawberry
plants, I would not have seen the cottontail
of a rabbit the size of a fist, his belly
breath quick & short,
his foot tangled in the vine-like growth.
Careful not to curse him with my
scent, I unravel the vine.
He does not scurry off. Too terrified
to flee, I think, so I lie
down between parallel rows
of snap beans yards away, hoping
his mother returns. How long will you wait
for someone in a nightmare? When I wake
from an unintended nap, this rabbit
had moved on to the trappings
of rigor mortis, his mother’s
milk too far gone, so I bury
him near the feeder roots of roses
climbing the fence casting ladder shadows.
