Lauren Davis
Planted Beds

My friend says, I’m sorry you hurt, a breast in his lips.
I’m sorry he broke your heart. He lifts my dress.
The flowerbeds are overrun with clover and crabgrass.
Only one blueberry bush survived winter.
I’m considering coffee grounds to acidize the soil,
my teeth in his shoulder. What are you thinking of?
Stay present, he says, sucking on my hipbone. I once loved
a man so much I cut off all my hair. Loved a man so much
I came to in the ER aisle strapped down, yelling
about the chill. I’m not good with restraint. I killed a cactus
because I insisted it daily drink. How does this feel,
my friend wants to know, his face buried below. Good, I say.
Very good. I arch my neck for display. I saw
from the beginning there wasn’t enough dirt in the plots
for the blueberry bushes to survive. I gardened anyways.
Last summer I even bought a watering can to match
my gloves. Now I rely on rain. The sky’s been dry
for twenty days. His mouth drums up water
between my thighs. Red roots wash past the bed’s
boundary, memory of a man choked by wild growth.

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Lauren Davis is a Bennington Writing Seminars graduate student working and living in Vermont. She has published in journals including Tipton Poetry Review and Spillway.

<< Back to Issue 16, 2013