Gopher lives in ugly ground
once broken for garden
now abandoned
between fence and shed.
One puff-
and-blow day I stop
to watch him
fairfaxing dirt
from his den,
lumping it
on the crazyweeds.
Gopher has fast hands,
pop cheeks and sleek
one-way fur.
He has different ideas
like thistles
preferring this
grubby freehold
to eden
and a hoe—
I watch the spring
bustling, inscrutable
underground eyes.
Is he the one
or many?
I watch cat
knowing more than I
What a grind she
and we, and this old earth
studying to be wild.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 1.
Anne Cheilek is a writer and editor living in the heart of Silicon Valley—if Silicon Valley can be said to have a heart. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in RHINO Poetry, Catamaran Literary Reader, Gone Lawn, Juked, and other literary journals. She is a poetry editor for DMQ Review and past poetry editor for Reed Magazine, garnering the latter their first Pushcart Prize.
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