I volunteer for the shit list
by Jane Zwart
Gardeners call them volunteers: sprung crumbs
under bird feeders, unsown sunflowers--
anything, really, that elbows, unexpected, stem
from dirt; any shit that takes root and turns out
blossoms. When I say I volunteer for the shit list,
picture the squash that does not wait for the rot
to finish, that grows from the midden of grounds
and rinds and sandwich crusts behind the garage,
that lets down tresses hung with wrung yellow stars,
which in turn close, Mai Tai parasols; which in turn
wax into pendulous fruits. When I say I volunteer,
imagine me not as the boy in the joke: his birthday
surprise a barn crammed with horse crap, he sings
out, sure there’s a pony somewhere. And not
as the pony. Imagine me as the song. Try—imagine
the composter’s crank attached to a Victrola’s axle
and me holding a slippery whole note, the germ
of summer squash. When I say I volunteer, picture
the seed, shit-sprouted, that even the avalanche
we feed our plates’ scrapings cannot dislodge.
Think of the beginnings too stubborn to churn loose.
under bird feeders, unsown sunflowers--
anything, really, that elbows, unexpected, stem
from dirt; any shit that takes root and turns out
blossoms. When I say I volunteer for the shit list,
picture the squash that does not wait for the rot
to finish, that grows from the midden of grounds
and rinds and sandwich crusts behind the garage,
that lets down tresses hung with wrung yellow stars,
which in turn close, Mai Tai parasols; which in turn
wax into pendulous fruits. When I say I volunteer,
imagine me not as the boy in the joke: his birthday
surprise a barn crammed with horse crap, he sings
out, sure there’s a pony somewhere. And not
as the pony. Imagine me as the song. Try—imagine
the composter’s crank attached to a Victrola’s axle
and me holding a slippery whole note, the germ
of summer squash. When I say I volunteer, picture
the seed, shit-sprouted, that even the avalanche
we feed our plates’ scrapings cannot dislodge.
Think of the beginnings too stubborn to churn loose.
Jane Zwart teaches at Calvin University, where she also co-directs the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, Threepenny Review, HAD, and Ploughshares, as well as other journals and magazines. In addition, she is the co-editor of book reviews for Plume; her own reviews have been published there as well as in The Los Angeles Review of Books.