Trans Plant

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TRANS PLANT


The pellets start in peat-pots—

this is in the vein of thought

that says it’s best to start out converts


with a part, and not where God converts

his chosen crop to war machine, 

razing foreign fields down


even to the sprouts. Still, 

terrified we dry them out most wilt  

from overwatering, drowning 


in intended care without a chance

for air. Perhaps this is why

the garden manuals advise


early transplant, which is a term

invoking less we let them go and more

we decompose until we're naught but soil


ourselves, and this the same soil

into which they too—if they’re to live at all—

must soon be swallowed, whole.


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