Laughing Dove Poetry

The Dead Woman in Her Garden

When the dead woman enters her garden, something blossoms and something dies.
The dead woman, surrounded by both blossoms and death, settles into a chair in the sun.
Her clothes settle around her.
Her hair is in disarray, as if she has just awakened.
If she has just awakened, her hair floats in loose gray wisps around her head.
If a bird catches a long strand for its nest, the dead woman doesn’t mind.
Her fingernails are jagged and dirty, and she smells not of roses, but of decay.
She shoves her toes into the earth, like a key to a lock, and a mechanism turns.
The worms churn; the roots pump.
All over the garden, fruits and flowers clatter and rattle, spin and sing.
The dead woman hums along, taps her fingers in time against the arm of her chair.
In her reverie, she travels along the edges of her living and finds not much difference from the edges of her dying. Not a hair’s breadth. Merely a breath.
When the shadows gather at her feet, she shakes the feathers and seeds from her hair and fades into the dusk.

More about the Dead Woman in Her Garden

The dead woman walks through the garden and takes what she wants.
The dead woman walks through the garden and leaves what she wants.
She prunes what she wants and stakes what she wants.
Because she believes in weeds, she lets the garden grow wild.
Weeds, she says, will save us from death by uniformity and order.
She avoids dead death like the plague; dynamic death is her goal.
Death, after all, is all about life.
Because she believes in the worm, there is plenty of apple after the worm.
Because she believes in windfall, there is plenty of apple after the wind.
The dead woman knows all about cycles, but she also knows about escape.
She keeps the usual cache of tools.
Her scythe is sharp; her rake is clean.
The dead woman grabs her shovel and begins to dig.
If she digs deep enough, she will reach the other side.