All afternoon it smelled like a greenhouse.
Blackness underfoot, the flapping of geese,
The earthworms white and starving at our ankles.
I climbed in the rocking chair
Searching for an opening to push into:
A greeting, a rustle above the rocks.
Once the porch lifted up to the wind
And you undid my hair
With fingers that gathered like mice.
"Greenhouse" was first published in Quarto's Spring 2017 edition.
Illustration by Dora O'Neill and Lily Ha