The Gardener

The neighbour calls

me Black Thumb.

If you saw my drooping

zinnias

you’d know why.

 

She’s never known

carnations to go charcoal

after rain. I call my roses

thorns because that’s all

they really are. Miracle-Gro’s

a charlatan with a ferret

beneath his hat. He might

as well be a mortician.

 

The vines upon the bricks

are pretzeled bones—

they’ve never held a leaf in

all their life. No one mistakes

my Ivy for Cambridge U.

Everything reeks of death.

Even the rats have fled.

 

Begonias beg for

water. I flood them like some

raging, Noachian God.

The marigolds would settle

for yellow. They’re butter

that’s spent a month in the

Mojave.

 

The foxglove is a mitten

on a shrew. The fungi

stay away. They know to

cross my fence is

suicide. Mushrooms

aren’t worth it.

 

The irises are blind.

Sunflowers have no petals—

and no one’s been around

for loves-me-not.

 

In fact, no one ever visits

and I don’t blame them.

The spiders spin no webs.

Each skunk has held

its nose. If my garden were a

costume, it’d be a graveyard on

the skirts of San Antone.

 

My bluebells

are kazoos in

shades of pall. The Loti

have been shunned by

Bodhisattvas—the frogs

are wilted prunes.  

 

Nellie’s Nursery

bolts their doors

whenever they see me coming.

The junipers

duck in droves. The Ferns

hide all their fingers.

 

Every living plant?

Deems me Thanatos.

Except the dandelions.

I’ve learned to leave

them be—lest they become

some haggard kitten,

their ashen teeth

 

detached from rotted gums,

carried in the current

like a jailbreak, hearing

Iqaluit’s pretty green

this time of year.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

July 4, 2026

Photo: Francesco Carta / Getty Images