gardens all the time
i. tonight
the stars make either oddly shaped animals
stretching out in the zoo-dark over the water
or they form warriors with misaligned brains
too far above the fields to have ever shed blood
or shown mercy.
ii. gardens all the time
I spend too much of my life not lighting candles
but I light this one
watching its calm hot flower open
into a room around us while the sap in the trees
keeps rising and falling
no blood cells just wood sounds
as the branches drum their leaves off into the dark
Anton Frost has appeared in Verdad, The Bacon Review, Parcel, and elsewhere. He lives in Michigan.
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