Overgrowth

I went out to find the spare key

hidden under the loose brick.

I didn't realize the porch had vanished

under a tangle of something thick.

A dead tomato vine caught my ankle,

a brown wire pulling me down.

The plastic shovel is half-buried now,

sinking into the rot of the ground.

I meant to pull the weeds in June

but the heat made the back door stick.

Now I’m standing in a graveyard of stalks

feeling small and remarkably sick.