Failure to Thrive

I go to visit what we planted last summer,
	but it hides from harvest.

Those sown by other hands have made good use 
	of the heavy rains, the slick earthworm’s burrows;

their stalks are waist-high and most have shed the thorns 
	they used to crawl through the dirt to sunlight.

Among these blades are trampled seedlings,
	scorched shoots—none of them mine.

That moss-bearded man had promised me 
	a blue and prickly thing, slow-grown and moody.

When it was still a sleeping bulb I found it in a glossary:
	Gardener’s Holy Grail. Thrives without special care.

I walk home to find the mint drowned in its bed,
	the violets torn from their roots.

Across my doorstep: yellow pollen thick as snow.

– Published in Luminous Echoes, a poetry anthology by Into the Void Magazine.

All proceeds donated to Pieta House.