GRIEF Poem: Gardening With An Ex, by Mary Brackett

Your knuckles are deep
in the dirt while
his shirt has just come off
& it’s skin & it’s sweat
& it’s not
as hot
as you had thought
it was going to be.
He’s a fish out of water
in the soil
where you’re trying to
bargain for a flower garden.

The radio is cut short
as the shovel
comes down sideways
in the dirt.
He’s doing it all wrong now
as if he knows how
to get under your skin.
He’s only here
because you thought you
loved more than just
the idea of him.
Because you thought
the sound of him
could drown out
the loudening loneliness.

You are repulsed
in retrospect.
The grass here isn’t green

& he’s just digging
more holes in the ground
for the neighbors to see.
This is when you consider
the consequences
to your actions.
The cost
of it all.

He mentions atonement.
This is your punishment.