Gardening by Martin Willitts Jr.

It was getting warmer, so I removed my jacket.

I kept digging in the same area to plant vegetables.

No matter how many times I pitchfork

and deep-shovel, I’d find surprises that don’t belong:

this year, a spoon; a silver key, bent askew;

a box cutter; a zippo lighter; a rubber drain stopper.

I was shifting dirt through a strainer and found a dime.

I was searching for worms. I found leaves I mulched;

several rocks of different sizes; a tree root, wide as a fist.

I found half a walnut shell the squirrel hid for later.

I can testify to the strength of the sudden gust.

It flapped around my spring coat as I chased it.

It took away the mourning dove’s song from its throat

to clear over the garage, into a neighbor’s yard.





Martin Willitts Jr is a retired Librarian. He has over 20 chapbooks, plus 15 full-length collections.  His most recent chapbook is "You Enter, and It All Falls Apart" (Flutter Press, 2019).