The Garden Wild
Lynette Mejía
Here is where I think we’re going
holding tight my hand as
if I am the child and she
the adult, the dead mother come
to bring me back to soul and salt
and the last wild strings left
clinging like vines to the strips of my heart.
It might be rain soon, she whispers
fully aware that I know better, wind
coming from the west like that
only brings dust and someone else’s memories.
The weeds are tall as my hips now, roses
brushing my cheekbones, not the sedate
delicate petals of the breeder’s trade
but feral, with little need to show off
and thorns as big as your thumb. The smell
is mostly earth and the decay that signals
richness, and here and there
I can make out the wide, white wings
of a moon flower, big as a satellite lost
against the stuttering crystal night sky.
Lynette Mejía writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror prose and poetry from the middle of a deep, dark forest in the wilds of southern Louisiana. Her work has been nominated for the Rhysling Award and the Million Writers Award. You can find her online at www.lynettemejia.com.