Out in the Garden
The morning glory vines are trying to
hold me in place, I can feel them tremble
beneath my feet, tiny fingers twisting in
endless curlicues, bursting into purple
flower from the exertion of trapping me.
I pull my foot away, take another step,
can feel the ground sigh behind me as
the morning glories stretch futile and
then retreat.
The lilies are trying to stab me to
death, I can feel their tiny points
poke up through the soil and
stop at the bottom of my feet. If I
just stayed here, stayed still,
the tiny red points would push all
the way through my flesh, my bone,
crown bright green and brilliant
through the tops of my feet and burst
into bloom. I lift my foot carefully,
step over the vengeful clumps
of hybrids and orientals
just in time.
- © Holly Day 2020
Holly Day (hollylday.blogspot.com) has been a writing instructor at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and Harvard Review, and her newest poetry collections are Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing), The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Literary Press), and Book of Beasts (Weasel Press).
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