The Grave
For Jan Dean
“the zucchinis are King Midas
withering in their own liquid gold”
Magdalena Ball, ‘False Promise on Petals’
a backyard is a cemetery.
there are tiny bones down there.
bones of birds and mice and skinks.
each year they subside further
into the sandy soil.
if you were buried there,
the way you wanted to be,
all that would be left of you
in one hundred years
would be your teeth and some nylon thread.
you will always be
that sole cigarette ember
on a summer night
blending into the wilds of the garden you planted
behind a sentinel of spiders
Morgan Bell