From the archives — Attacking a Boxwood — Kenneth Pobo

Attacking a Boxwood

By a climbing rose, it has seen
maybe thirty years of storms
and gooseberries. We plot

death, want the space it sprawls on
for flowers—I open loppers, cut,
crazily, for a good half hour
till it’s barely a stump.
But not dead.

You rev the chain saw.
Even the stump must go.

Branches, how green they are.
Shining.

Our shirts smell of death.
Partners in life
and now in a killing,

we drop boxwood pieces
into the compost heap,
sneak in the back door, silent.

by Kenneth Pobo

from Autumn Sky Poetry Number 6, June 2007