The Liberation of Better Boys and Early Girls

I.
Glamping under grow lamps they
sit in egg cartons poked with drainage holes
on the Goodwill table in my basement.
I speak to them in a low register
hoping that my hearty vocal fry will calm them.
“It’s barely above freezing,” I say.
“There may be a late frost.”
But it is hard to kill an idea.

II.
At last the great escape--
I pluck them one by one
roots and all, soak them
and sink them into the soft soil.
Fiending on a fresh hit of Miracle-Gro
these young indeterminates
don’t seem to notice or mind
the cages that have gone up around them.
Instead they grow
and wait until the day
they will rise above the fence line
to see all that lies beyond.

--published by SUSAN/ The Journal