by Michele Parker Randall

I pray like someone who gardens in Florida. Plots begin
small & manageable, carefully footed, flagged, strung,

chalked. Then the first crop matures. Then the feasting
festival of possums, or raccoons, or bugs, or rats, or birds

leads to bigger plots, to grow enough for us, too. Stakes
stretch out a bit each season until heavy machinery turns

out to be necessary & a fulltime job feels intrusive. Early
morning, before the sun turns leaf edges & saps my energy,

there is a pull, I suppose like the ocean feels toward the moon,
to walk each row in a daybreak celebration of night-

survivors, all blossoms & young fruit. This morning, I let
my feet wonder if my garden will shrink with me as I age;

when growth plans are scrapped. What answers bloom
if we break containers, let runners root & wander?


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Michele Parker Randall is the author of Museum of Everyday Life (Kelsay Books 2015) and A Future Unmappable, chapbook (Finishing Line Press 2021). Her poetry can be found in Nimrod International Journal, Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere.