CW: homophobic slur
I’ve come home to find everyone already gone.
I’ve come home
to count all my gods.
My mother never planted juniper trees.
And, still, here they are
like tall boys. They’re growing
sinister over the foliage.
I’m done with sliced fruit, done
with its blanket aroma.
It isn’t comforting now.
The fag word: the sinker holding down the line.
The exclamation point thrown from moving trucks.
A moving truck.
I told you I came home
to find everything in twos.
The booze and the bandage.
The front yard—ravaged.
I’ve come home
to count all my gods.
My mother never planted juniper trees.
And, still, here they are
like tall boys. They’re growing
sinister over the foliage.
I’m done with sliced fruit, done
with its blanket aroma.
It isn’t comforting now.
The fag word: the sinker holding down the line.
The exclamation point thrown from moving trucks.
A moving truck.
I told you I came home
to find everything in twos.
The booze and the bandage.
The front yard—ravaged.
Gardner Dorton is a poet from Knoxville, TN. He received his MFA from the College of Charleston in Poetry. His work can also be found in Homology Lit, Rattle, Crab Creek Review and Glass: a Journal of Poetry. His chapbook “Stone Fruit” was released in February 2021, published by Glass.