August 2021
Bio Note: I attempt to help our Veterans heal as a RN in the Seattle area. I also attempt to be handsome enough for my wife and patient enough for my children. My third book of poetry, These Hands of Myrrh, is upcoming from Kelsay Books in late 2021.
hedging
chisel the unruly boxwood into a green
parenthesis with an inadequate
electric trimmer
dig under the skin to make it appear even
but the thicker stems spring back
resilient
after an hour and a half the back of the beast
still bulges and dips as i wade through
the cuttings
that night i dream my son is trying to speak
and i keep sawing off his words
as soon as they escape
he vomits echolalia fiddleheads
which need to be sliced before they
spore
(we have been worried he is not speaking
enough we have been encouraging him to
speak)
but he smiles and laughs and says dad
and there doesn’t seem to be any damage
from the shears
that still vibrate in my hand and he says
to me without talking yes i will talk father
yes i will talk
you can’t stop me from growing you can’t
stop me from screaming you can’t
quiet me
with sharpness you can’t stop me from singing
into every part you cut i know you don’t do it
on purpose
don’t forget to breathe
father
quick round trip
my son brandishes a trowel and digs into new
beet and kale shoots and i have to keep
redirecting him to a bare spot to excavate
don’t put it in your mouth
dirty
is repeated 5 times
next he finds the junction between
the foundation and the siding where he discovers
spiderwebs which he proudly shows to me stating
this and my response is yes spider webs
no don’t touch that
dirty
i find compost on his face so i wipe it off swiftly
as he climbs up onto the deck
where i can see the glaciered
olympics rising out of
snow-white clouds
and an airliner
lifting
off the earth to i imagine places like nepal
new zealand costa rica which i have never
been and i long for a moment to jettison
into heaven on that plane possibly
a younger version of myself without
younger versions of myself
clinging to my
legs
but then i realize how much i will miss him
and how he will be alone here under darkening
skies and impending rain how his father just
vanished westward into the horizon
one evening like a pale ghost
on a swift wind and i
realize
that i would rather be dead than separated from him
or his sister who begs me to read the book she
is engrossed in and i see my wife—not next
to me seatbelted escaping—but beaming
up at me as i come back into the house
my son stomping towards her
his bib caked with
dirt
©2021 Scott Ferry
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