C.B. Anderson
was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series, The Victory Garden.
His poems have appeared in dozens of print and electronic journals over the past five years, most recently Blue Unicorn, Nassau Review, Innisfree, and nthposition.
His e-chapbook, A Walk in the Dark, is published on the website of The New Formalist Press.
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The Uphill Struggle Downhill
Last Johnsday was a legal holiday, and so
I left my brood at home while I went down the cliff
that fell about ten paces past where raptors go
to sleep when they have finished feeding. I’d be safe
until the lesser sun shone squarely on the glyph
which guided sailors to the shore. I made good time
before my ancillary hands began to chafe
inside their gauntlets, causing me to slacken off
a bit and ponder whether maybe I should climb
back up before I’d gone too far. And it was then
I nearly rammed into the drone whose musthy cough
alerted me that he clung just below. My nether-
most heart began to swell. I prayed a quick Amen,
relieved we’d not bestained the rocky coastline. His
reaction was to clasp my ankle with a tether,
as worthy sailors should when hooking for a home
ashore, and I began the necessary busi-
ness of ascending, knuckles fore, the precipice
above the spume, that warm trans-genderizing foam,
full knowing, once again, I’d made a mess of this.
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