Send me out into my ruin where every twig shoots like a pistol and every branch cuts like a sword. Free me from chores and let me maraud the undergrowth in a swimsuit the color of hard candy. Sweet and deadly, let the morning glory strangle the grape arbor and the ants overrun the clusters. There was a time I thought I could pull enough weeds to earn my keep here, lay enough sandstone or scrub enough floor. But the praise of labor is always answered with more labor. This life doesn’t quit shoving green growth down my throat. The fruit trees, bearded with lichen and bees, deafen me. The pansies muscle past paving stones and wreck the paths. With each minute I tarry I can hear my father tabulating what I have cost him. The space I occupy is borrowed and will soon close over me. Left too long, the bittercress goes to seed.
Allisa Cherry was born and raised in the rural southwest of the United States. She has since relocated to Portland, OR, where she works as a writing tutor and small-scale urban farmer and has recently completed an MFA in poetry at Pacific University. Her work has received Pushcart Prize nominations from San Pedro River Review and High Desert Journal, and is forthcoming in Westchester Review and Tar River Poetry.
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