Patricia Davis-Muffett, Rockville, Maryland, USA
Clearly, we’ve waited too long—
the “impenetrable thatch”
of gardeners’ warnings covering
the damp earth, which ought to be
snowdrifts or an icy field by January,
but in the prelude to our subtropical future,
it is rainy, nearly 60 on New Year’s Day.
Still, I can’t complain.
Last year, you followed advice:
“Cut the meadow in August.
As short as possible.” You,
on your riding mower, trying
to make way for seed pods,
build a wildflower meadow
for me, for the bees, for
your own sanity, here
in our fortress of trees
within earshot of the
8-lane highway, abutting
the hiss of our neighbors’ scorn.
You didn’t warn me.
When I glimpsed you
halfway done—wild
meadow mown, red blooms
and daisies churned in among
the culm and flower of grasses.
I held my hands against the glass
choked on my cry—I didn’t get to say
goodbye—and you returned, shaken,
the rabbits, toads, voles,
who thought they were safe
after six months’ residence—shocked
by the churning blades of the mower.
That long ago night—Minnesota solstice—
when you woke me, holding
the tiny mousling in your palm
and me, with my stone heart,
told you to take it outside
into the dark where
our orange extension cord
glowed from the second floor window,
across the frozen lawn, under
the hood of the car to keep
the battery from freezing—
I suppose I’ll rejoice in the thatch
stunting the most delicate flowers.
This year, maybe we’ll use the scythe,
cut in sections with fair warning
to the families sheltering there.
And before we do, I will walk ahead,
cut blooms for the table and pretend
for one more season, that we are
all coexisting, gentle
as the machinery
of the world whirs
in the distance.
Patricia Davis-Muffett (she/her) holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota. Her chapbook, alchemy of yeast and tears, is forthcoming. Her work has won numerous honors including Best of the Net 2022 nomination, inclusion in Best New Poets 2022, and second place in the 2022 Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest, and has appeared in Atlanta Review, Pretty Owl Poetry, Calyx and Comstock Review, among others. She lives in Rockville, Maryland, with her family.
