GENEROSITY POEM
By Heather McShane
A fern snuck into my pot of aloe. It’s growing against the window, the farthest green,
from my view. I have to stand on a stool to reach it on the top shelf.
I have this idea that ferns need more water than aloe plants. Did the aloe store water in
anticipation of the fern spore, like a camel, even ruminating?
Today rain runs down the glass just beyond the plants. I should repot them, but I always
feel like it’s not the right day to repot plants, like I don’t know what the moon’s doing, I
don’t have a farmer’s almanac.
And this, this is a new situation, two plants together, a surprising, probably imagined
relationship. But I should repot them if, for no other reason, than to stop this writing, to
let you fill in.
Heather McShane lives and creates at Tritriangle. Meekling Press published one of her creations, No Home but Everywhere, in November 2015. Her smaller works can be found in Alice Blue, Bad at Sports, Eleven Eleven, Pistil, and other places, online and in print. She teaches writing and literature at DePaul University.
© 2017