The Ones She Preferred

Bob Brussack

She preferred the ones

That knew their place,

The plants, I mean,

The ones that stayed

Exactly so in the long

Straight rows she’d made

On pollen-yellow

April days, and not,

Of course, the other ones,

Inclined to claw and climb

Astride and out, beyond

The metes and bounds

She’d set aside, the

Designated ground,

As if they, too,

Knew their place.

Bob Brussack was born in Manhattan, lived for decades in Athens, Georgia, and resides now along the south coast of Ireland.