Suburban Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia suburbiana

In resisting this place I have succumbed to the carnivore. The botanical eater. Now I bear its purple-veined cloak like a skin, stumble beneath its nodding maroon bloom as if under an alien sun. I slipped into it unawares, you see, was enshrouded by its hoary tube.

And though I tried to bargain with it—promised to be an upstanding citizen and all—its gnawing enzymes neutralized me. Guess I should’ve done like the others: put up a fence, cut the grass, offered up my soul to the concrete gods. But who expects a pitcher plant in suburbia?

Occasionally I peek out over the nectarous lip. All I ever see are tendrils of carrion flowers clambering in through the windows, or fragments of my childhood fighting to reseed. So I no longer struggle. Anyway, it’s too late for all that—I’ve been digested up to the neck.

First published in Not One of Us in 2022. Also a 2023 Rhysling Award nominee.