September Tomatoes, and: Animal
- September Tomatoes, and: Animal
September Tomatoes
The whiskey stink of rot has settledin the garden, and a burst of fruit fliesrises when I touch the dying tomato plants.
Still, the claws of tiny yellow blossomsflail in the air as I pull the vines up by the rootsand toss them in the compost.
It feels cruel. Something in me isn’t readyto let go of summer so easily. To destroywhat I’ve carefully cultivated all these months.Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit.
My great-grandmother sang with the girls of her villageas they pulled the flax. Songs so oldand so tied to the season that the very soundseemed to turn the weather. [End Page 102]
Animal
I grew up dreading the crueltyin dreams. The glimpseof evil I was always forcedto take like medicine.
I’d heard stories of kids eatenby wolves. But in my dreamsI was the animal, hunted,tormented by smiling men.Their humanity was their cruelty.It grew in dark filamentsalong with their hair, it moved acrossthe black planets of their pupils.
A chase. And I hidin the most unexpected place,not under the bed or behindthe curtains, but againstthe wall in plain sight,morphing by sheer forceof will into a creature coveredwith scales of wallpaper.
Eyes closed, lids papered over.Opening them meant being given away. [End Page 103]
Karina Borowicz’s poetry collection, The Bees Are Waiting, was selected by Franz Wright for the Marick Press Poetry Prize and has been named a 2013 Must-Read by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Her work has appeared in AGNI, the Southern Review, and Columbia Poetry Review, and her translations have been featured on Poetry Daily.
