Todd Heldt is a librarian in Chicago. His first collection of poetry, Card Tricks for the Starving, was published by Ghost Road Press. Other things written under various pseudonyms have appeared in print, on the internet, and on movie screens. Since becoming a father his biographical statement has less time to be interesting.
The Gardener
Pesticide garden, ocean of plastic.
But soil crescent moons crown her fingers.
Her hair swims the carbon monoxide clouds.
Breath
Trees taken from the wind
and buildings burden the clouds.
Silence sounds the language of ants
out of air, dead breath in our ear.
Boxes of plastic flowers line
the concrete sidewalk, and we
are the heel that crushes us.
Acceptance
In the grocery store the everything
wells up inside you, hollows your gut,
and dizzies your head with the vastness
of love so useless it cannot hold
pins to a map or people to the earth.
There you are in the produce aisle
scavenging among the somnambulant,
knowing that we all will die,
that the sun one day will swallow
the earth, and the ones you love
are incandescence in your eyes,
like these fluorescent lights that float
above the stench of the back aisle butcher.
You did all you knew how to do. Now
slip some ice cream into your cart,
a flavor you’ve never tried.
Take it home for your kids to devour.