IN THE BOTANIC GARDEN

by jared hayley

 

 

 

Shears rasp, remind how years

seem to deepen

the capacity for grief, for diversion, having,

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in the meantime, planed both so thin.

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Shears: synonyms, summers paired,

premonitions of Silver sliver and sever

You tell me things you should not tell your lovers.

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Mine is the insistence of each shadow—

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I have nothing but had.

What we work to untangle we mostly unravel.

Poor plants, pouring forth without release.

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A locked chest in a room without windows

unearths in me. Inside something severe

seems determined to be said. But why say?

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Why revive the body that was, so recently,

so reticent to live? Why does the singer feign

hard of hearing while we are screaming our adoration?

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The telephoto lens pushes plants away.

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The gong hangs with woe. When.

What was, was suppressed, is yet. Wend.

The voice we weary of will always return. Wren.

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Yet is the thing we can no longer bear to hear.

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And yet you have said

but how am I to remember

I had no choice, I felt, ever.