Four sad poems about plants

I put seeds down in the cold,
hoping they'd do something.

It was too late.
Like gestures they
only collected in the hollows;
they were an apology
after the fact of Spring,
it's true,

and the pillbugs were
eating them
after the next rain.


#


It was only after light
faded
and the leaves,
the things that fed,
withered in shade
that I could see you


#


Soon after the artichoke
died

the leaf stalks were full
of earwigs.

They had been waiting
for it to die and

having carved themselves out a
hole in the dead tissue

they were fed
and they were safe


#


For two months the sunflowers made a safe place

The things they shaded
are gone now.

Not knowing what else to do
they piled
over the sunflowers' corpses
but the sun was still too much