Stem Cells Smell like Tomato Soup

cancer: the mistress no one wanted

Daylight Savings 

Oil on Lenox – “Boyd”
Hair Loss and Luggage

There’s a heavy silence lingering in the air

Fire toothed trees torch the grey skies in protest

We all know what comes next 

Pressure on my chest as I notice the birds aren’t there to witness my labored breathing

I hate the sound of my thighs rubbing their fabric together as I push

Pull and

Gather

What’s left of a garden once well loved

Heavy boots sink into freezing mahogany mud while I dig

The friction between shovel and earth is a familiar sensation

They played bagpipes at my grandfathers funeral

Stars and Stripes and wood against grass and Irish poetry I didn’t understand

The potatoes are rotten this year

They pus green and smell like hospital beds

Perhaps we waited too long for the task at hand

Or the wet summer drowned their defenses

Or maybe it just wasn’t meant to be

I dig and blister my hands in the still air

Jolting every time I hit a rock

Waking my hibernating mind

“Stay here” the rock says

“Why?” I respond

“Because there’s work to do” it replays 

“And if you don’t prove the whole crop is waste, no one will believe you”