When you left this world, I was
driving back roads that coiled
through pine-shadow & crooked/fenceline
Author Archives: Sammy
Sanctuary
Agatha scrapes open the rusting backyard gate, and a chorus of yips erupts from the inside of the bungalow. The troops emerge from the homemade dog flap in the back door; thirteen chihuahuas, dachshunds, and small mutts veer through the maze of vinca tendrils and tiger lilies to reach her as she walks up the thin path.
“Goddamn slimy devil spawn that girl is!” Agatha’s wrathful smoker’s voice rasps through the open kitchen window. “The audacity to try something this shifty, I just can’t fathom it.”
Rooted
In a backyard that looks like Eden moved south/to let itself grow over, my grandmother perches/in a white plastic lawn chair.
Point of Impact
Before I knew you’d died, I was driving/backwoods dirt roads, just/outside the small town we used to share
Communion
At four, I knelt in the garden
beside my grandmother, hands full
of seed, as she covered them one
by one with dark, loamy soil. This
is how I learned devotion.
Chrysalis
A clump of five boys Devan’s age sat in the back row closest the emergency exit. Devan gave a little nod and a wave to one of them, a gangly boy with blonde locks that were much longer than the other boys’ hair. Even from the length of the bus, Devan could see an undiscovered galaxy of copper freckles pepper his cheekbones.
Scavenger
My dog sees it first,/her sleek silhouette/stiff & still &/bristled at the scent.
Home-Grown Serotonin
This year I did something I never thought I’d do: I went off my medication for my depression and anxiety…
quick-write: childhood home
Maybe when you approach it, it won’t look like much. Houses are far and few, but chicken houses abound—if it’s an unlucky day you will smell them. Hills bow up on every side like they’re cradling the land beneath, which is covered in lazily waving grasses and wildflowers. The only trees to speak of areContinue reading “quick-write: childhood home”
Mycelium
I am not a tree, ascending/
to reach the heavens./Although I’m not quite grounded
honey gaze 