Elster Stares the Desert Down

you were

staring from the kitchen at the yard after work

through the window where the owners pulled a tree from the earth

and the dirt

stands piled where the earth was disturbed

you could move it toward the fence to fill the garden bed

built last spring

where you never planted anything yet

dying flowers in the vase on the sill still

trying to find a pattern in the scatter of leaves

though you were never really one to have your fortune

or a prophesy read

and Elster stares the desert down

30 miles from the center of town

and around him the night falling in like a crown

do any missing people ever get found?

do they ever get—?

found:

in the back of the shed

in the things that they left

with the tools on the shelf

there’s a box full of gloves

and some seeds in a kit

so you take it all out in your arms

to the yard and you dig

little holes in all the rows that you made

in the dirt with the spade

maybe two inches wide

and you kneel on your knees

go to lay them inside

but you laid down instead

and you slept

as if dead

for a week

and Elster starts addressing the crowd

in a bunker 30 feet underground

and the sound in the room is like a voice in a tomb

echoes banging in his memory now

now will they ever get out?

if there is a last thing I will see before I go let that thing be

a better me

and I climbed on the pile in the yard in the dream

to see how far into our future I could see

and Elster stares at night at the phone

catatonic alone but for the hum of the dial tone

glowing like a ghost in the screen

when I go and I leave here

do the missing people ever find peace?

if there is a last thing I will see before I wake up let it be

you in the bed there fast asleep

softly dreaming of our garden

trimming roses

growing older

getting harder for our knees to bring us

down the pull the weeds

seeds start sprouting outward

blossomed and surrounded you

with flowers over night

all your life here at last there was peace

all the vines intertwined

in a canopy

closed in tight around you

on your legs and arms and chest

deep in the ground and then downward

where your resurrected self

will grow from the ground and be found where you’d slept

every petal and stem

all the promises

and Elster stares alone at the screen