Garden Shed

There’s nothing growing in the garden shed
this March—just rusting shovels, rakes and hoes.
I sleep alone now in our double bed.

I should be planning for the months ahead
and planting seeds by now, I would suppose,
though nothing’s growing in the garden shed

I built for you the summer we were wed.
That autumn that we stayed warm, despite the snow.
I sleep alone now in our double bed,

I wake alone, get dressed, somehow get fed
and stumble through the day. That’s how it goes
when nothing’s growing in the garden shed,

when no one’s here to tell me how to spread
the mulch or where to empty the compost
bin. I sleep alone our double bed

this year, for all the years that lie ahead.
They say a man will reap just what he sows,
but nothing’s growing in the garden shed

and I’m alone now in our double bed.

***

Wayne Lee was born in British Columbia, raised in Washington state and currently lives in Santa Fe, NM, where he teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts. His poems have appeared in New Millennium, The Ledge, Tupelo Press, The Floating Bridge Anthology, California Quarterly, Steam Ticket and other publications. His collections Doggerel & Caterwauls: Poems Inspired by Cats and Dogs, and Twenty Poems from the Blue House were published by Whistle Lake Press.