GREENING BY MARY MANDEVILLE 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 82
FALLOW
Your hand cooled in mine as you slipped away.
Scooped into a measuring cup of stars aimed toward true north,
you melded into greening columns of light in a northern midnight sky.
While the world was Juning, you Novembered, Decembered, and disappeared.
Un-sistered, I sat and wept. Brothered, I stood, my head to his shoulder, as a plain brown cardboard box with the shell of you inside slid into the oven, a scorching two thousand degrees, till nothing was left but ash, a chunk of femur, and pieces of tibia.
You migrated to the next place as people do.
Missing you, I gave up growing things. I let the garden lie fallow.
But defiant, the greening came anyway.
Chicory and Clover.
Dandelion.
English Ivy and Italian Arum.
Lemon Balm.
Pokeweed.
Purple Loosestrife.
Poisonous or healthful, these hardy plants we call invasive
sought to drive their roots into the soil and shoot green leaves toward the sky.