What Buds

by Kristin Garth

Inside each pore, the dirt shoveled deep, 
to hide a killed corpse, will eventually 
seep into five million hollows to sleep 
a season below.  Spring surreptitiously 
speaks a diction which grows from sprouts which shout 
the guiltiest’s name.  How brazen the blossoms 
begotten of shame will blather about 
vendettas of vacated veins without qualms 
to quiet the truths told in human remains.
Pearlescent petals preserve putrid psalms 
imbibed through desperate roots which strain 
through ribcage towards blood where mysteries pool. 
When planting a culled corpse, what buds could be cruel. 

Annotation: It’s December, and the world has grown cold. This year more than any I can remember of late, I have held tight to the comforts of baking, holiday movies, cozy Christmas socks to keep my heart light. There has been a lot of death in my life the last few years. Recently, my elderly neighbors who are some of my best friends on earth — like honorary gentle parents, which I have never had — lost their daughter. I’ve been very involved with them lending support and baking lots of cookies. Their grief has echoed a lot of grief I have gone through in the last few years myself. This is all in explanation as to why I have been writing a lot about death and corpses — like this poem. It feels good to extricate the darkness, let it bloom outside of myself a while and make room for a new kind of garden.