In the Garden, the Stormtroopers
BY RACHEL BUNTING
grew unnoticed. They were so small, tiny white hats
poking through the soil like strange mushrooms.
I was clearing the lily beds, tearing out by the roots last year’s
overgrowth when my fingers brushed across the top of a helmet,
cold and hard, like a rock. There were more, every one
the same, ten of them in paired rows, and growing faster
every day. Soon their black eyes and identical frowns peeked
above the ground, scowling up each time I turned the corner
of the house. I learned to avoid that garden, the lilies unkempt
and dying. Still the troopers kept growing, mission unknown.
It was something beautiful: I watched them for weeks at night
as first their vulnerable necks then armored shoulders broke
through the surface of the dirt. When finally they could pull
their arms free, they pushed themselves out from the ground,
a simple formation. I hid behind the curtains and listened
as they marched, blaster rifles shouldered. Who could stop
them? The next morning, my son’s incredulous face searching
the garden: only a fray of black and white roots trailing
from the earth’s broken jaws.
grew unnoticed. They were so small, tiny white hats
poking through the soil like strange mushrooms.
I was clearing the lily beds, tearing out by the roots last year’s
overgrowth when my fingers brushed across the top of a helmet,
cold and hard, like a rock. There were more, every one
the same, ten of them in paired rows, and growing faster
every day. Soon their black eyes and identical frowns peeked
above the ground, scowling up each time I turned the corner
of the house. I learned to avoid that garden, the lilies unkempt
and dying. Still the troopers kept growing, mission unknown.
It was something beautiful: I watched them for weeks at night
as first their vulnerable necks then armored shoulders broke
through the surface of the dirt. When finally they could pull
their arms free, they pushed themselves out from the ground,
a simple formation. I hid behind the curtains and listened
as they marched, blaster rifles shouldered. Who could stop
them? The next morning, my son’s incredulous face searching
the garden: only a fray of black and white roots trailing
from the earth’s broken jaws.
RACHEL BUNTING lives and writes in South Jersey, the beautiful half of a maligned state. Her poems can be found in Boxcar Poetry Review, Weave Magazine, and Shit Creek Review. She has been inside both Norman Mailer’s Orgy Room and his living room. She likes it when you try to guess which she prefers.
