Bo-Arts // Patient Gardener

Bo-Arts is a bi-weekly art/literature initiative.Twice a month,  Boshemia will share creative writing and visual art submissions from our readers and folks who identify as feminist to give a larger audience to emerging creatives. Our goal is to provide a platform for feminist artists to share and discuss their work.

This installment of Bo-Arts is brought to you by Mary Beth Kuhn. Mary is a classically trained pianist and poet who feels the most creative when she rides the DC metro after a couple glasses of sangria. Mary earned her Bachelor of Music degree from James Madison University. She genuinely likes most people and loves her husband, her greyhound, her cat, and her job at Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts.

This is Mary's first poetry submission to Boshemia.

Patient Gardener

When I talk about time,

it's in relation to how long I have before my eggs dry up.

I describe it as plenty,

which is also how I describe my hips,

and now that I am grown, I see there is nowhere left to go but through.

But really, I know that time is a patient gardener.

And so I plant hostas and attend to them dryly like a stranger

arranging a funeral.

When they sprout up from the earth like too many memories,

I dig them up and give them away.

My life is a catalogue of what I've let go of.

In truth, I want everyone to love me.

But there is nothing romantic about sex in its most feral form.

In truth, return me to sand and I will make pearls.

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For more information about how to submit to Boshemia and our Bo-Arts series, look here.