Citrus February

by James Miller

On Sunday
we visit the nursery,
where red grapefruit trees
squat in turquoise tubs.

She will need
stable sun, heaps of warmth.
A blanket round the stem
when we roll her in
on cold nights.

Flat-palmed soil—
no mounding round
the lowest reach.

Will we plant well,
when three years
have come?

Spadework. Pick out
nails from the clay. Bones
of the dead, none
we named.

::

James Miller is a native of the Texas Gulf Coast. He is published in Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press) and in the Marvelous Verses anthology (Daily Drunk Press). Recent pieces have appeared in The McNeese Review, Kissing Dynamite, On the Seawall, Barzakh, Press Pause, Coal Hill Review, The Shore, Door is a Jar, West Trade Review, JMWW and Tiny Molecules. Follow on Twitter @AndrewM1621. Website: jamesmillerpoetry.com.

Image: Jared Subia

Image description: an orange in a tree framed by long, green leaves.