JODY’S GARDEN

 

Still life in back yard

Bell peppers green as their leaves

Tiny white flowers

 

Rising from compost

Thrown under the kitchen sink

Dumped from a bucket

 

Into the black bin

Where it cooked all winter long

Degrading itself

 

Humbly dissolving

Our breakfast egg shells

My home-made hair cut

 

Nail clippings tea bags

Apple cores banana peels

Sloughed off from our lives

 

Smothering the weeds

Under the shredded bark mulch

Winters newspapers

 

The outrageous puns

In the New York Times crossword

Relapse into soil

 

Red blush from the sun

Ripening on the window sill

Her first tomatoes