"Instead" - A Draft
No, we aren’t angry, just sad.
It’s been two years since we emptied
two garages of storage boxes
into what remained of a dying orchard,
overflowing with swingsets and tiny dogs.
Their eyes always droop, moist and soft
like rotten apples on backbroken trees.
Foreign shoots veil the grove with life,
but smother the fruitful life beneath.
I would not be sad to see them go:
I’d trudge through the April mud,
hatchet the tangles around the trunks,
fling the villainous vine aside,
unpacking the boxes one swing at a time.
There’s frightful joy to split the curtain
of the earth, flaying open the green seams
to the rich brown below, fingernails to blade
slicked with settling dust, deeper until
the ball of twisted roots is torn away. But,
my kids are not awake, and I am still sleeping.
