Wreath

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She had buried time capsules:

vegetables that never took root;

photos – smoked blue from being 

in the sun; keys to unknown locks;

dead fish; notes in bottles. Debris

swelled through the soil, her trowel 

drew hieroglyphs on the ground. 

She rolled up her moth-eaten sleeves,

their earthy smell – like tea leaves – 

flushing from her clothes into her throat.

When she died, there was no one to

bury her – her spade lay lost at the bottom 

of the garden, still caked with dirt.

She lay in the vegetable patch, vines coiling

around her neck, curling

through her hair.

Then the storm came –

sun whispering rainbows to the rain –

when the mud tossed itself up,

and her belongings clawed to the surface.

Magpies stole the keys;

puddles drowned the photos;

cats snatched the tin-foil fish,

soil bubbling, pulsing until the 

Earth swallowed her whole,

as though she’d never existed at all.