Page 18 - North Star Literary & Art Magazine

As Good As a Pumpkin
Chelsea Van Der Munnik
Bring home the pale pumpkin huge with autumn the size of a bean bag chair used as an ottoman can’t be lifted a dense brain firm as a terracotta pot placed near the front porch with an exhale
left for winter and more winter
We’ll get it, we’ll throw it out maybe when the snow melts its rotten for god’s sake frozen to the ground
carved by the season’s guts removed by weather shrinking into the soil taken back as a feast
Earth wants what it made back.
By spring not a shred of that weight is left visible to the eye I saw it I swear it was there it was there
the grass is a little pale when you squint at it.
Next year pumpkins will bounce to life rising from the pulp big as a table and chairs set seeds the size of lemons
a maze of stringy bits -- watch out they’ll grab you.
Another year the pumpkins will be the size of homes
or if you’d like these pumpkins can just live your life for you because to the Earth you are as good as a pumpkin.
16 POETRY