In the biggest flower bed, 

near where the false indigo rests, 

is a garden bench 

where no one sits. 

On the bench is a copper tea kettle, 

weighted down by smooth, dull stones, 

stay-put insurance 

against wind gusts and  

a cat who likes to watch things fall. 

We’ll turn the kettle into a planter 

for dahlias or African daisies, 

but for now 

it only grows mosquito larvae, 

because we always forget 

to tip out the water 

after the rain. 

 

 

Chelsie Taylor graduated from Bellarmine University with a major in English and a minor in studio art. She now lives and works in Springfield, Kentucky, with her husband. Her work most recently appeared in Poetry East Number 100: The Bliss of Reading, an independent magazine affiliated with DePaul University in Chicago that was ranked by London’s Poetry Review as one of the top 20 literary journals in the United States. 

Photo by Tom Swinnen from Pexels