Garden

there is a body in your garden
exposed bones
exposed blood
exposed heart
laid bare

the walls of your garden 
watch the body with unease
The windows of your house
open onto your garden
and you watch, too, the body with unease

the trees are losing their leaves
and the flutter from the trees
into your garden
you do not rake
they cover the body

the leaves pile high
but still the body is visible
through the red and yellow and orange

winter is about
And you pray for snow

The snow comes
and it smothers your chrysanthemums
your lilies
your roses

and the body

the snow piles high
but it never seems high enough

all too soon 
the snow melts
and slowly the body is exposed
your walls watch with dread
as bone by bone
the body returns

the blood is dried now
not the bright desperate red
of fall

now it is brown
it is dried and cracked 
on the worn skin
and the cold bones

and it looks like dirt

like mud

like filth

your grass had died
under the snow
but it begins to grow up around the body

the sun 
and the birds
and the crawling things
eat away at the flesh
the skin
the tissue

they do a better job of cleaning up than you

when the violets begin sprouting from between the ribs
all that is left are bones

your garden is growing unsupervised
you do not go in to bring back order

you watch 
from the window
as wild flowers sprout among anemones
as weeds grow through the collar bones
and the eyes
of the body

as summer rises
the grass rises around the body
as insects buzz in the tall grass
and the body is sunk into the hot earth
you do not go to the garden
but the body does not go to you

the garden has overgrown it

and the walls surround it

and you can open your window again
to let in the heavy summer air






Roots are strangling the earth 
They are cutting tangled scars through it
They are snaring rocks and rabbits with no distinction made between them
Living and dead mean nothing to trees 
Rabbits are dead between on heartbeat and the next for trees
Rocks barely exist for trees
Everything is slow 
So maybe roots don't know the pain the bring upon the earth
And maybe they do and they do not care
There is power in apathy

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