His garden, after he ripped away zoysia, the second year
of his third marriage. Tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, verdant rows
of earth softened into beds swaddling seedlings until harvest, (this is
not)
a corner left for my flowers. (the story) His cigarette smoke looped
the sky,
we watched it twirl, fade into starlight. I poked my seeds too deep, (I
want)
we counted nasturtiums and marigolds who bloomed their way out,
caressed their fiery petals burning against twilight. Before my body
fruited
he asked to stroke the buds forming beneath my skin. I fell asleep
against
his shoulder and he held me like a father. Later his hands roamed, (to
tell)
after he stopped pushing seeds into the soil, before he named me
untrustworthy
bitch after I told his wife (my mother) everything. No longer guarding
green
from larva, he became teeth gnawing away my blooms each night.
How Well He Nurtured What He Planned to Pluck
Ki Russell is author of the hybrid genre novel The Wolf at the Door (Ars Omnia Publishing, 2014), the poetry collection Antler Woman Responds (Paladin Contemporaries, 2014) and the chapbook How to Become Baba Yaga (Medulla Publishing, 2011). She is a peer reviewer for the online literary journal Whale Road Review. She teaches writing and literature at Blue Mountain Community College.