Kelly DuMar

Misadventure with peas

Sow your sugar snaps before May—
~ Old Farmer’s Almanac

Finally, you drive away.
Come home, he commands,
it’s Valentine’s day. But
LeapYear 
order your seeds 
to be delivered
elsewhere.
Blastocyst—
Marriage—a cell
is dividing inside you.
Middle March
gonewhere
you claim 
one whole half acre 
a field of frozen soil. 
Your belly fruiting a flat cake 
placenta. April first 
garden, new garden, late garden, your own. 
Work fast and far
dawn to moon. Plunge
your hole-digger in soil. 
Fence your unskilled plot.
May Day is the day to roto till your mind
off old Valentine and dog you left behind. Root 
up crab grass and rocks—
pitch stone by useless stone over your border.
Mother’s Day 
herewhere a load is delivered
organic manure, shovel it
into upturned dirt. 
Bees birds and worms of your world.
Let his ring ring ring ring into Shush.
Belly swells bronze under sun. Scalp sprouts 
lanugo. Enlarging brain tells foot to kick.
O June 
sleep, then wake in daybreak your garden 
bed. Blueborn sky hangs inches from your nose. 
A red tail hawk spirals. Mattressy layers of leaf
matter amend the soil beneath you. 
A knot—a pea 
bruises the curve of your back. Rise and plant.
Tap the whole seed pack into upright palm. 
Pinch each knobby kernel into rows. 
Independence Day
his urgent texts run along trip wires 
to coil you. His dog has died, he craves his wife.
Watch your watermelon—
how it gains stripes and weight—no turning back. 
Lip-pink fruit ripens inside a rind.
By Labor Day 
yellowed peas refuse to climb—and yet 
you have not strung 
your trellises in vain—red willow sticks you cut
allstraight     untwined your spool—
kneeled you
under Sanguine Moon—October
risehere      squall—
rain-gush     pumpkin-wash     howl
brow-chin-chest-spine-
cord-vine    new-
born 

Back to Issue IX…