I was happy with my purchase, at first. Innocuous
in Its bloomlessness, yet still impressive in size.
It had been for sale at the High School greenhouse,
grown by students needing credits in Science.

I should have known something was wrong,
in the middle of the hanging basket, a huge carrot
was growing! I thought that strange, but it looked cool,
I had to have It, I paid my twenty bucks.

I hung It right outside the back screen door,
could see It from my computer chair, loving Its
extravagant growth so early in spring’s coolness,
It stretched and reached with strange vigorousness.

It had been a couple weeks and a stalk was blooming,
a bright orange-red, Its cluster was a thing of beauty,
I didn’t notice anything peculiar, kept watering It
and admiring Its profiled flower head, little did I know.

A new stalk bloomed, this one pointed through the screen,
towards my chair, I was startled when I looked to see two eyes,
red-furled and peering at me, I went to check and, by god,
below the eyes was a green fuzzy-toothed mouth!

I studied the eyes, incredulously; they studied me,
and I swear I saw that mouth slightly smile…
I took some pictures later, laughing at my mind,
how silly to think I saw mouthed eyes in a plant!

I wasn’t too sure over the next couple of days,
the eyes unfurled in increments, widening,
I couldn’t see down deep, found yard work to complete
away from Its life-lush hanging, there was much to do.

The other night, as I glanced up from my chair,
I saw the eyes move - talking to each other.
The click of the digital camera made me curse,
the beep and two-second delay gave away my plan.

As their still forms glared at me, I shut the door
and went to bed, somewhat fitfully. Yesterday noon,
I noticed a change, two petals had recurled,
It had created hands! Or so I thought.

Thumbs up, they looked like mutant mittens,
with ember-fire eyes at their cores, I nearly flipped,
got wishing my computer chair was anywhere else,
the constant perceiving was unraveling my nerves.

Weather’s been windy, here, with lots of rain,
It stretched Its stems closer to the entrance
of my home; I happened to hit It with the door
on my way out back. It didn’t like that. I didn’t care.

I grabbed a ladder and some red raffetta string
and bound that arm, I mean, stem, tightly
to the neighboring lattice, without knowing
my shoulder had half snapped off a hand-eye.

I stood, aghast, stunned with shivering anxiety,
went and cut a twist-tie in half to clamp the eye to its mate,
turned my back and went inside, studiously blind;
peripherally, at my computer, I was aware of Its rage.

More steady rain and an afternoon later, I checked on It,
It wasn’t good, the torn eye and the rain
had collapsed the good eye, I felt oddly dulled;
I reached up my hand and slipped their forms free…

I took the eye-hands into the house, put them in water, and,
feeling guilty, I turned to look out the darkening door.
Below the void, and to the right, because I had tied It down,
the first matured, parental cluster was now aimed at me,

with nine flaming flower-faces staring through the screen,
and They looked mad.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
Photo by Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
4/4/04 © Copyright