The Plot

by Despy Boutris

Now, the backyard is a graveyard.
It’s scattered with dead bodies: a fish,
three cats, the ashes of a husky.

Since the burials, the fig tree has grown
taller, the gravestones littered beneath.
On nights like this—rain pouring, scent

of soil—you fix your eyes on the hills,
waiting for a mudslide, or some other
kind of disaster. By now you know

the world is all fires and floods. You know
it’s all loss, all broken-open pomegranate,
juice dripping red on white sheets.

Despy Boutris’s writing has been published or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Ploughshares, AGNI, Crazyhorse, American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. Currently, she lives in California and serves as Editor-in-Chief of The West Review.