Gardening with the Reaper

by Donna Vorreyer

What it’s time for is an adventure. But here I am
gardening in my bathrobe instead. 
What kind of escape could I possibly plan?

I prepare the bed with fertilizer, a pitchfork.

My parents always said to plant after the frost 
had passed, but I am always cold. It is mid-May, 
however, so time to put the seedlings in.

Their roots remind me I can’t run from this.

I think sky. The reaper says dirt. I dig a furrow 
and, when he’s not looking, I plant some sugar, 
wait for something sweet to bud. Instead, 

the reaper grins as metal spikes push up through
the earth. Sprouts like the points of spears. Like his teeth.

::

Donna Vorreyer is the author of three full-length poetry collections: To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications. Recent work has appeared in Ploughshares, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, Harpur Palate, Baltimore Review, and Booth. Her visual art has been featured in North American Review, Waxwing, About Place, Pithead Chapel, and other journals. Donna currently lives and creates in the western suburbs of Chicago and runs the online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey.

Image: Annie Spratt

ID: Garden tools against a cloudy greenhouse wall.