I ate the aphids because we fed them
Martha Ryan
our cruciferae in the garden box
we built from Wilfred’s moving sale. We packed
up planks, gutted his beds of amended
soils—off our shovels, shook chickens who hoped
to score worms—tetrised our haul in the car:
we drove home, rusty screws combing our fly
aways, planks over headrests like boom mics
recording our spat over where to eat.
Required: re-assembly in parking
lot. Every summer morning thereafter
haul hose to each splay of roughage, x marks
the grave of chicken shit and expectation.
Come harvest, cut broccoli heads, half bud
half bug bitch you’ll eat what eats what you grow.
Poetry
22 September, 2023
Martha Ryan is an emerging writer. She is currently an MFA student at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her work has previously been published in Foglifter and a smattering of academic journals.