Gabriel Welsch

Forsythia, scaled and bud-bangled, I pruned to a thatch of leaves for the curb, by the squirrel-gnawed corn, silk strewn, kernels tooth carved and husks shorn over the ground pocked with paw prints. The borers mashed the squash vine, the drought tugged the roots of sage, catmint languished by the sidewalk, tools grew flowers of rust. That winter we left our hope beneath the snow, loved through the last of the onions, watched the late leeks freeze to crystal, bent like sedges, their shadows on the snow. That winter we left our hope beneath the snow.