Students Painting in the Community Garden on Newark Street
       

Standing scattered
as seeds, planted
as easels,

their heads rise
above the cosmos,
zinnias, and marigolds,

which, freed
of any gardener's intent,
have burst

into tall, tangled
October overgrowth.
Scarecrows—

still and upright,
arms lifted at strange angles—
they hang,

hang,
patient in this hushed
wild field.

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Copyright © 2011 Elizabeth Poliner All rights reserved
from Sudden Fog
Spire Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission