Alien Fruit

Someone’s digging a hole
in my universe,
planting some new growth,
in that dark deep hole
there is something
that we must find,
examine, test,
perhaps destroy?
Let us proceed
with due caution,
for this small burrowing
may portend some
ominous leafing,
alien fruit.
It is on the far side
of my universe,
yet its darkness
falls upon me,
and I can hear the sounds
of planting, of something
pulsing as it takes root.
Away, away, you have
no right to my garden,
this is my lifespace,
my forever,
find your own universe,
leave mine, you crowd me,
you crowd me.

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Cleo Griffith has been widely published in journals such as Main Street Rag, Straylight, and Westward Quarterly. She has been on the editorial board of Song of the San Joaquin since it began in 2003. She lives with her cats, Amber and Mister, and an assortment of barn swallows, lizards, scrub jays, and other creatures in Salida, California, among the artist-of-all-kinds-rich environment of the California Central Valley. Her first book, The Yellow Dress, was published in September 2025.