The summers the boy was five & six
& a masterful yard sale negotiator, he
amassed a collection of porcelain dolls
that traveled everywhere with us
buckled in the backseat—the boy, his
dolls, their asynchronous winking eyes.
He called them The Doll Land Army.
I sewed green uniforms with toothpick
swords & my husband built them a fort
in the woods behind my parents’ house.
The boy didn’t mean to break them—
nevertheless, one by one they succumbed
to mortal injury & with great ceremony
the boy buried them in the flower garden
by the stone wall with the climbing
wild roses. My mother watched while
collecting the hips. “Don’t worry,”
the boy said, “in spring they rise again.”
Winter comes quick after pickling season.
My mother tied back stalks to decompose,
their bulbs asleep under earth rigid
& sparkling—garden erased by weather.
After the melt, my mother called with
the good news: “They have RISEN!”
Row after row, chipped faces pushed
through soil dotted with crocus & snow
drop, cheeks still blushing, brown &
gold ringlets matted; eyes unblinking
through plastic wrap. The boy’s fallen
battalion, resurrected by frost heave.
Summer J. Hart (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist from Maine, living in the Hudson Valley, New York. Her written and visual artworks are influenced by folklore, superstition, divination, and forgotten territories reclaimed by nature. She is the author of Boomhouse (The 3rd Thing Press, forthcoming 2023) & the microchapbook, Augury of Ash (Post Ghost Press, 2020). Her poetry can be found in Waxwing, the Massachusetts Review, Northern New England Review, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her mixed-media installations have been featured in galleries and shows including SPRING/ BREAK, NYC; Pen + Brush, NYC; Gitana Rosa Gallery at Paterson Art Factory, Paterson, NJ; and LeMieux Galleries, New Orleans, LA. She is a member of the Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation.
SPOT IMAGE CREATED BY WARINGA HUNJA
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