Gardening - Rachel MALLALIEU

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 their 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

frayed 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.

Previously published by Jarfly, January 2022

Rachel Mallalieu is an emergency physician and mother of five. She is the author of A History of Resurrection (Alien Buddha Press 2022). Some of her recent work is featured or forthcoming in Nelle, Rattle, Chestnut Review and Whale Road Review. Much more of her poetry can be found at Rachel-Mallalieu.com.