This poem reckons with connections and disconnections—between words and what they signify, between a dying mother and her daughter—how things slip gradually, then all at once. Gardens and plant life illustrate cycles that we may witness but do not control. In these shifting seasons, something truer than language may emerge. The day before my mother died, she kept saying that words were not enough, and I knew exactly what she meant. 

Elinor Ann Walker (she/her) holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Recent and forthcoming poems appear in AGNI, Bear Review, Nimrod, Pirene's Fountain, Plant-Human Quarterly, Plume, Poet Lore, The Southern Review, Terrain, and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook, Fugitive but Gorgeous, is forthcoming from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. 

W: elinorannwalker.com
F: Elinor Ann Walker
B: @elinorann