Bolt

BOLT

by Kate Hargreaves

i.

The lettuce bolted. Shot to seed & tipped in the storm. The tomatoes
worked through the fence, dropping green fruit, choking out the blueberry
bush. What is a weed if it flowers? Draws butterflies to the window in
orange & black relief? The clover hasn’t quite seeded, but I root for the
tiny clusters to outgrow hungry spadgers & thrive. Deadwood climbs tall
as children & bursts with pink blooms. I nearly uprooted them. Some things
just need time. I write the flowers down, learn their leaves & colours &
names to call to the bees.

ii. 

sweet woodruff for humility hewn from its temporary bed
    forget zinnia seeds until they sprout absent friends
        what’s a weed but a yarrow
    thyme under grub-eaten leaves crawling for
blue salvia, I think of you until I don’t
    rhododendron grows over dead cedar
        peonies too lush to be bashful
    plant a full bed of distrust, lavender for luck
ivy an invasive fidelity, married to the soil
    unassuming dill claims to guard against evil
        a folly of columbine
a recovery of poppies

iii. 

The pumpkin vine rots at its base but crawls on across pebbles: content
to open orange blossoms every morning & close again by noon—knows
it cannot sustain a gourd like the marrows that lengthen all summer into
fall. I choose a pumpkin-coloured sleeper, the size of a fennec fox today
she says or some fancy french cake or a camping lantern.

I thumb board books about black cats and pumpkins, coo at impossibly
small and unnecessary shoes.

buy a new litter box so that the cat will stop shitting on the floor.

iv. 

Chopping back the rose of Sharon 
tossing buds out of season to bloom in heavy piles 
to dry & shrink 
I sweat early fall hacking telltale roses with Stevie Nicks on repeat
planting seeds out of season
            I don’t have the triceps or the snips for thick branches that snap
rainwater across my face
            and shelter thorns with fairytale intentions.