swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

someone is always the garden
Lee Kathryn Hodge

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VIII.
The directive like a kiss.
A place where two materials meet;
ship stern against salt-soaked piling.
We were swallowed
in the hailing gesture
of the launch
against the justified
ark of the wake.
A column of air caught
connecting one shore
to another through a space
of constant maintenance,
the labor seamless.

IX.
The labor seamless.
The metal laced liquid
runs off from the copper works
full of pollutants stratified
like a book fold, midstream.
Here in the bay watershed
sediment settles to the bottom,
heavy as a promise.
The largest crop is lawn,
the ground a face cut by shadow.
Behind a lectern
backgrounded by statistics.
She used to say
someone is always the gardener.

X.
Someone is always the gardener
and someone is always the garden.
Like a gift horse
the past has an eye
in its mouth.
Scenes buried and dug up
Shriveled as an orange
in a bowl of pot-pourri.
We live with a lot
of hatred nowadays.
Big pharma in our veins and
toxins in our water table.
headline of a BuzzFeed article:
Someone is always the garden.

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Lee Kathryn Hodge is visual artist and writer whose work has appeared in Granta, Black Warrior Review, Thrush, Heavy Feather Review, Euphony, Heartwood, The William & Mary Review, Oberon, Clinch Mountain, After Hours, Mouth and The Tulane Review.