Domestica

Anna Weber

This morning, in the pale butter light 
of the new May sun, I picked romaine 
fresh from our garden and for one brief 
shining moment, I was the Laura Ingalls Wilder 
of suburban agriculture.  I was a wild thing, 
a prairie beast.  Swimming in self-sufficiency.  
But inside the house, all of my plants are dying: 
bromeliad and ficus roots gone yellow and soft 
with an unidentifiable rot, and the leaves 
of my devil’s ivy curled in.  They are brittle 
as ancient recipe clippings, tucked into cookbooks 
and forgotten.  They’re impossible to kill,
the Home Depot employee assured me, 
months ago.  But sir, you underestimate 
my ability to ruin.  Give me a good thing, 
and I can melt it to nothing in minutes.  
I’m the empress of bad choices.  I pick arguments 
with house cats and flirt with the postman.  
I write carrier letters to people who treated me 
like dirt.  I’ve proven to be my own worst enemy
again and again, a trusty equation that never changes.  
The limit does not exist.  Fly away, birds.  I’ll be home, 
waiting for responses that won’t come.  When I can’t take 
the peace lily’s sickly stare any longer, I’ll move 
the whole host of houseplants outside.  Is this 
what you want?  Is this the life you so desperately desire?  
The overdose of sun will kill you, I think.  
But what do I know? And anyway, even if it does— 
what a way to go. 

Originally from Louisiana, Anna Lowe Weber currently lives in Alabama, where she teaches creative writing at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Nimrod, Poet Lore, Flock, Tar River Poetry, Del Sol Review, and Gargoyle, among other journals.