Wildfire

By Arianna Delmaestro

By early autumn, the gardens are overgrown;
bushes and shrubs climb through the brush, reaching
over and tearing down;
piles of arms of legs of limbs tangled,
green so bright it’s bleeding from the leaves, so when
November comes, she paints them with her own blood.

It’s kind of like us, isn’t it?
Living.

Wild raspberry branches pull my knit sweater, and I think, Nature is ruthless–
vines will smother their sisters to survive. And
I think, That’s kind of like you, isn’t it? Not meaning harm,
just setting your tunnel-vision on the sun
and grasping for whatever you can to pull yourself up.

Potted plants can have a preferred pH and light level, but
you grew up through the sidewalk cracks. And now
it’s 10 autumns later, and the brush reaches
like dry, wrinkled hands into the road where drivers flick their cigarettes and I think,
I think that’s how fires start, isn’t it?