A Poem by Martin Willitts, Jr.

Planting After Being Told It Is Too Risky After Surgery

I have had one too many near misses,
one too many visits to the emergency room.
Too many near misses are not good for the heart.

The ground is still frozen now.  It would shatter
from icy sheets into cracked glass.  The urge
to plant another year is stronger than the need to rest.

Once again it was a false alarm.
Just like seeds might be dormant, hiding below
the surface, malingering, disease hides.

I say enough is enough.
Like the first soldier to rush towards the unknown,
all luck, all planting, all risks, are unknown.

Martin Willitts, Jr. is a retired librarian.  He has appeared in many of the Kind of a Hurricane Press anthologies.  Plus he has two ebooks on the site.  He has over 20 chapbooks, plus he has 11 full-length collections including, How to Be Silent (FutureCycle Press, 2016).  He recently won a large poetry grant in New York.