Undone

Borage leaves for courage, heart,but I harvest just the blossoms, layer them

in plastic clamshells. Squint, they’re bluesky in a box. The black anthers,

a murder of crows. Bones sometimessurface in the compost. A sheep’s skull

over the greenhouse door. The farmerdown the road never mucked his stalls,

left ewes, lambs to rot where they fell. Garden,I thought when he died. Took a shovel

to the rich, dark mix, hauled it and hisabandoned collie home. The flower

tastes like cucumber. Watery, bland. Pleasuremostly in the color. Each day, nosing the path

back to the old man’s, the collie sits at the endof her undone chain. The way—out of longing,

duty, habit—I’ve worried my own dead.Time and worms and heat have worked

the stench from the manure. My handsgentle, the dog cowers, still anticipating blows.