OIL COUNTRY

by Pepper Trail

 

 

 

 

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.  

THE REFUGEE

by Karen Mandell

 

Seedlings are something else entirely.

I’ve tried them year after year, the excitement

of new growth lulling me into forgetfulness:

Most fail miserably. Then I go to the nursery

and buy their baby plants instead, planted in plastic

Cages but at least they’re sturdy, survivable.

Most have small, hopeful flowers already laughing

and practicing their dance moves in the light wind.

Bearing flowers, doesn’t that mean they’ve come of age?

I’m told to pick off the early blooms to make the plant stronger.

I can be tough but I can’t manage that.

This year is different.

Out of two packs of seeds, a dozen nasturtium and cosmos

have come up. A dozen all together. A small victory. 

I’ll wait out the nursery and nurse these seedlings

with their too thin stems, frail, spindly,

roots thin as cobweb strands unable to soak up

the water I’ve poured with too generous a hand.

This morning when I roll up the shades to let in the sun,

a mushroom stands upright it the pot, 

its thin stem strong enough to hold its gill upright.

Gray, with a perfect helmet head, erect posture, a soldier

Standing his ground. I can’t allow it. It speaks of decay,

ruin, dank. The seedlings are impervious and lean into the sun.

I should be like them, happy with their square inch,

no begrudging or fear of encroachment. Instead,

I look for a plastic spoon to dig out, to disembody.

But I don’t go through with it. It’s not me to determine

Who will live and who will die. 

Karen Mandell’s short story “Goddess of Mercy” is forthcoming from Notre Dame Review. She has written Clicking, interconnected short stories, and Rose Has a New Walker, a book of poetry. She has taught writing at the high school and college levels and literature at community senior centers.