Sudbury Community Garden

May 1, 2020

Rage Hezekiah

Sunflowers slump

like drunks

outside the bar,

thick stalks necrotic—

stripped of seeds by

unfed starlings, dark

birds pillaging

the beds. Butternut

squash hulls litter

snowless soil, russet

tomato skins stick

to wet ground

beside faded

seed markers

submerged

in earth. February

shouldn’t warm

the loam, but I

walk the farm

with bare arms, bask

in untimely weather.

Sun penetrates

skin like a welcome

drug, after

a winter spent

swaddled in flannel.

Among familiar decay

my breath nourishes—

life finds its way back

inside. Raspberries

scatter at my feet, fruit

once honey-sweet,

delicate herbs harvested

last August, lavender

& thyme. Brassica

skeletons rest beside

the nightshades’ bed

tomatillos’ mangled vines—

a treasure already

robbed. Relics

of a hazy summer,

pressed into humus

beneath full hunger

moon, frost cloth

waving in the wind.

from Issue 31.1

RAGE HEZEKIAH is a New England based poet and educator, who earned her MFA from Emerson College. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, The MacDowell Colony, and The Ragdale Foundation, and is a recipient of the Saint Botolph Foundation’s Emerging Artists Award. Her chapbook Unslakable (Paper Nautilus Press) is a 2018 Vella Chapbook Award Winner. Stray Harbor, her debut full-length collection is forthcoming with Finishing Line Press in 2019. You can find out more about her writing at ragehezekiah.com.