My friend, playing folk music
on his silver tambourine,
and folding lilies out of beer cans,
found his father like I found
my bamboo plant, when I, when he,
returned from Christmas.
I found the stalks had grown soft
as mold ate away at its roots.
My friend, he told me a story,
of summer vacations,
like sandscapes and seashells,
like sunsets and sweet breezes;
he told me a story of a man,
who turned around the car
for silly souvenirs and playing cards,
who cried when his only son recoiled.
Even the easiest of plants turn to rot,
breaking beneath the tiny stones
that keep them grounded
within their blue jars
balanced on the window sill.
Sami Richardson is a doctoral candidate at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, with interests in Shakespeare and gender studies. Her poetry has been published in Flutter and The Southwestern Review. Her life in the swamp is about writing, grading, gaming, and trying, fruitlessly, to get her overweight cat to exercise.