“… A rope descends from above,
Two officers drop onto my patio.
They grab the pots,
Using both hands…”

Listless Pleasures: The Bathtub Poems #3

by Ace Allen

I sit back and watch
As my plants die,
Suffocating in tiny clay pots...
Surrounded by death and rot—
Too much, far too late.
Too little light and too much water,
No drainage.
Fertilizer piling up,
I pace frantically
Across the patio, pruning.
Neighbors peek out their windows,
Shaking their heads.
A phone rings,
Police sirens wail sixteen stories below.
A helicopter approaches
In the distance, blades thwacking the sky.
A rope descends from above,
Two officers drop onto my patio.
They grab the pots,
Using both hands.
“Target secured,” they say into a radio,
Clipping the rope and flying off into the distance,
Pots in stow...
To this day
I’m still not allowed to own plants.

Ace Allen is a writer based in the Washington D.C. area.

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