[Directions: Replicate this page via scan or printout. Find a shoebox & trim the page down to size so that it lies face up & flat in the bottom of the box. Visit a public garden or community greenhouse. Layer on top of the printed page an assortment of the following items in whichever order you prefer until the box is filled to the brim: soil, leaves, flower petals, small stones. Place the lid of the box over the contents. Place sealed box on your bookshelf. Leave box in place for sixty months. At the end of sixty months, open the box, remove all contents, & take photographic evidence of the state of the seasoned page.]
Every page presses a dried stem
Every line reeks of rosehip & clover
The juniper berries savour a comparison to lotus pods
I would linger longer if only you asked
So do
So do just that
the asking for it & anything else that tickles
your fancy
My limited vantage affords me no wealth
beyond the pastures I step over
fence by fence to gather this very company
Jacob Schepers (he/him) is the author of A Bundle of Careful Compromises (Outriders Poetry Project 2014). His manuscript “Colder Country” is a two-time finalist for the Antivenom Poetry Prize as well as the Annual Poetry Award from Elixir Press. His poems and reviews have appeared in such places as Verse, Midway Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, The Fanzine, Entropy, Heavy Feather Review, Burning House Press, The Destroyer, and elsewhere. With Sara Judy he edits the journal ballast, and he teaches at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. www.jacobschepers and @JacobSchepers.