My mother once told me –
back when we were talking,
which we did in those days
but haven’t done for a while now –
never to poop in your own backyard.

Which I obviously then did –
because: why not?
And besides…
I immediately then got scooped up
and placed in another garden:
greener, lusher and more verdant;
set free to roam as I pleased, and it pleased me a lot –
so no harm ever came of it.

And as for the poop…
well, the poop got left exactly where it was,
at the foot of a tree next to a wheelbarrow full of leaves
and a radiator ripe with rust,
set free to wither and shrink
growing old benignly.

by Rebecca L. Atherton

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