sat in Ziploc too long
green leaves turning yellow, brown
in cloudy, smelly water
atop the perfect quartz countertop
we saved to buy
to improve our place, our life
with flash and progress
while the plant died
you slammed doors
to our bedroom, our house
our family van, where you exited on Front Street
that Sunday before church
shouting back
It’s done! We’re done!
with daughters crying in car seats
and your wife, holding buns for the potluck
unbuckled to slide over
and drive away
the plant is on the deck now
still dead
but drying-out and sunning-up
to blow away in the winds of fall
tumbling toward a properly potted life
Kimberly Sailor, Mount Horeb, WI, is a 2019 Hal Prize finalist in poetry, with poems also appearing in Sixfold and The Bookends Review. She is the author of the novel The Clarinet Whale. Sailor is the current editor-in-chief of the Recorded A Cappella Review Board, and holds a publicly elected seat on her local Board of Education.
Eunoia Review 