X
twenty-seven thousand nine hundred and twenty-one
it’s october now so we ride a wagon
to the pumpkins, observe, on the way,
the corn with its method of living,
in the sun, or with the twisting wind
all those dead stalks, those rotting husks
peeling out to yellow the scene,
one surviving stem in the field’s centre
all those pumpkins quite far apart
between them, the branching,
the offshoots of their shared stem
which browns in places
but remains intact and,
in the middle of it all,
a little green almost-pumpkin
just becoming its own shape
in the world, off the stalk,
becoming, almost, itself
but still,
always,
the stalk
twenty-eight thousand nine hundred and sixty-eight
The Republic of Home is available from The Blasted Tree Store
Featured by The Blasted Tree: August 6, 2022
Leslie Joy Ahenda
Contributing Author
The Republic of Home by Leslie Joy Ahenda is a Blasted Tree original collection of poetry.
ISBN [Digital]: 978-1-987906-92-9
Cover Design by Kyle Flemmer