Two Poems by Sarah Carleton

Guerilla Gardener

       “Guerrilla gardening is the act of gardening…on land that the gardeners
       do not have the legal rights to cultivate such as abandoned sites, areas
       that are not being cared for, or private property.” – Wikipedia

The almanac says rough weather’s
on the way, so I plant a phrase here,

a link there, and shore up my shed.
I weed out invasive species—

watch me not buy books and dongles
from the company with a name

stolen from a race of female warriors.
Hear me sharpen my shovel,

sing to coneflowers, and share tips
with my comrades about rolling seeds

into clay balls to protect them as they
sail and germinate. We lob poems

at playgrounds under cover of night.
We feed and water a sense memory

of normal—that field of colors, scrappy
and chaotic and full of bees

—as we toss our words into gray places,
seedbombing the desolation.

*

Renovation

The student earned her stay in the Irish manor house
by scraping paint and cleaning dust

side-by-side with someone she’d never met before,
an American—the one thing they had in common—

from Philly, with thin legs, straight blond hair,
a daily makeup regime, and nonstop chatter.

Hiding from cold stone bedrooms, they filled
the little kitchen with whiskey, tea, and giggles

late into the night and cooked eggs in the morning,
the side effects of nocturnal drinking

brushed away like crumbs of drywall.
The Philadelphian—wolfing chicken and noodles—

would laugh about her own reputation as a big eater.
The student would stuff herself with cauliflower

and echo this in-joke about her new friend,
learning her special language,

until the last day, when she repeated, “big appetite,”
once more, and the Philly girl snapped,

“You don’t exactly eat light,”
the barb bursting their bubble just in time

for them to part, no addresses exchanged,
confusion and hurt dangling like bits of broken balloon

amid the sudden knowledge
that instant friendship was a rickety scaffold.

*

Sarah Carleton writes poetry, edits fiction, plays the banjo, and knits obsessively in Tampa, Florida. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Nimrod, Tar River Poetry, Cider Press Review, ONE ART, Valparaiso, SWWIM Every Day, and New Ohio Review. Sarah’s poems have received nominations for Pushcart and Best of the Net. Her first collection, Notes from the Girl Cave, was published in 2020 by Kelsay Books.