Gardening
You won’t need the shovel,
the earth is pocked
and collapses with the slightest touch
This spring,
our kitchen brimmed with tomato seedlings
Now, they languish beneath
a premature sun
In the winter, we composted
our egg shells and clementine peels
to fortify the soil,
but the lawn is uncooperative and
wilts, despite
your ministrations
The neighbor’s grass is green
though red eyed cicadas
litter the yard with
primeval husks
You’ve always loved
their evening clamor--
a hum ancient as the dinosaurs
They shed their shells
like luminous ghosts and the
deserted frames
fix straight legged on
our pear trees
You’ve been dropping pieces of
yourself lately
Perhaps you didn’t notice
when you left a shard of your
lumbar spine in the
car you crashed
A fragment of your
tendon still dirties
the garage floor
Cicada young feast upon
their parents’ remains,
but I can’t feed our children
such meager offerings
So please, slip your weary skin
and manage the garden
before summer comes
Tend to the groundhog which
burrows through your chest
and till the soil of yourself--
let the blueberry bush
which roots inside your heart
finally yield the bounty
it pledged
the earth is pocked
and collapses with the slightest touch
This spring,
our kitchen brimmed with tomato seedlings
Now, they languish beneath
a premature sun
In the winter, we composted
our egg shells and clementine peels
to fortify the soil,
but the lawn is uncooperative and
wilts, despite
your ministrations
The neighbor’s grass is green
though red eyed cicadas
litter the yard with
primeval husks
You’ve always loved
their evening clamor--
a hum ancient as the dinosaurs
They shed their shells
like luminous ghosts and the
deserted frames
fix straight legged on
our pear trees
You’ve been dropping pieces of
yourself lately
Perhaps you didn’t notice
when you left a shard of your
lumbar spine in the
car you crashed
A fragment of your
tendon still dirties
the garage floor
Cicada young feast upon
their parents’ remains,
but I can’t feed our children
such meager offerings
So please, slip your weary skin
and manage the garden
before summer comes
Tend to the groundhog which
burrows through your chest
and till the soil of yourself--
let the blueberry bush
which roots inside your heart
finally yield the bounty
it pledged
Dead Fox
In the woods behind my house,
amid pine needles and frozen leaves,
a dead fox lay on his side.
The plush copper of his fur begged
to be stroked, and I prodded
him with a stick, certain he
was only sleeping.
The black buttons of his eyes dulled,
then disappeared three days later.
Each day I was certain coyotes,
whose wails disordered my dreams,
would discover the rest of him.
Each day I was wrong.
In late February, winter flirted
with spring,
and the buzzards arrived.
Soon, only the scaffolding
of his ribs and spine remained.
When the trees flamed crimson and gold,
my dog unearthed a femur,
then a shoulder, and dropped his
riches at my feet.
Winter’s knife edge had returned
when he exhumed a jawbone filled
with rows of pointed teeth.
I pried the grin from my dog’s mouth
and hurled it behind the trees.
My father’s cancer rooted and blossomed
behind his bones.
Its harvest left us barren.
amid pine needles and frozen leaves,
a dead fox lay on his side.
The plush copper of his fur begged
to be stroked, and I prodded
him with a stick, certain he
was only sleeping.
The black buttons of his eyes dulled,
then disappeared three days later.
Each day I was certain coyotes,
whose wails disordered my dreams,
would discover the rest of him.
Each day I was wrong.
In late February, winter flirted
with spring,
and the buzzards arrived.
Soon, only the scaffolding
of his ribs and spine remained.
When the trees flamed crimson and gold,
my dog unearthed a femur,
then a shoulder, and dropped his
riches at my feet.
Winter’s knife edge had returned
when he exhumed a jawbone filled
with rows of pointed teeth.
I pried the grin from my dog’s mouth
and hurled it behind the trees.
My father’s cancer rooted and blossomed
behind his bones.
Its harvest left us barren.
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Rachel MallalieuRachel Mallalieu is an emergency physician and mother of five. She writes poetry in her spare time. Her recent work is featured in Blood and Thunder, Haunted Waters Press, Nelle, Entropy, Anti-Heroin Chic, 2River View, 8Poems, Tribes, Rattle and many others.
T // @drrmalla |