"Garden" by Scott Bailey
The following poem is a brief selection from our Fall/ Winter 2019 print issue, accompanied by an audio recording of the poet reading their work. Click here to purchase the full issue, which features poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art by more than 30 brilliant contributors.
Garden
The morning after his sudden death,
I walk barefoot on a dewy path
to my garden on the hill past
a creek where I pick up a grass
snake that coils my finger, flicking
his red, black-tipped tongue before slithering
toward the signal of spittlebug larvae
growing within gobs of frothy
foam. If I had not watched
him vanish among the runners of strawberry
plants, I would not have seen the cottontail
of a rabbit the size of a fist, his belly
breath quick & short,
his foot tangled in the vine-like growth.
Careful not to curse him with my
scent, I unravel the vine.
He does not scurry off. Too terrified
to flee, I think, so I lie
down between parallel rows
of snap beans yards away, hoping
his mother returns. How long will you wait
for someone in a nightmare? When I wake
from an unintended nap, this rabbit
had moved on to the trappings
of rigor mortis, his mother’s
milk too far gone, so I bury
him near the feeder roots of roses
climbing the fence casting ladder shadows.
Scott Bailey is the author of Thus Spake Gigolo (NYQ Books, 2014). He grew up in Raleigh, Mississippi, in a family of carpenters, farmers, and preachers. His poems have appeared in 580 Split, Exquisite Corpse, Harpur Palate, Meridian, The Adirondack Review, The Cortland Review, The Journal, The Ocean State Review, The Southeast Review, and Verse Daily, among others. His degrees include an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from New York University, and a PhD in Creative Writing from Florida State University.
