Cabled Garden

by Tyler Stercula
Illustrations by Noah Pottebaum & Yized Hernandez

There is a cabled garden that
Grows and grows and grows,
Where the lucky fox sleeps and
The Ferryman seeks
A fare of fingers and toes.

And in a wakeless silence,
The dormant shudderscythe knows:
Its absent master sighs a
Worried prayer of lies—
The Tender reaps not what he sows.

But, for a moment,
In the still crackle of rebirth,
A stuttered breath can circumnavigate
All untilled virginal Earth.
When the fox awakens,
From her den, shaken,
She’ll appraise the truant
Cordsmith’s worth.

There is a cabled garden of
Rows and rows and rows
Of cloudroots and sharkteeth,
And barkbooks and sinwreathes,
That never ceases to impose.