Fake Plastic Trees
by Emily Kingery
A friend flew home to Texas once and put me in charge of the plants. No big deal, just take the key and pour right into the pots on the windowsill! Except there was also a cane plant in the corner, which I mistook for decoration. Look, we were grad students in Illinois, where nothing exotic stays alive, and it was January. Even now I have just one houseplant: a yellow philodendron that flings itself from a whiskey bottle. Maybe you keep a jungle of them, plus a watering can, and you sit like a poet at your window. You are relentless when the radiator is relentless: You raise the sash like a toast to the snow. Me, I still sing along to that Radiohead song that slays the girls because real trees are better, like what are we even doing to ourselves, then buy an artificial tree to stare at over Christmas. I am in love with slick brown leaves coating my lawn because there will be less grass to mow in the spring. I circle Target with a cart full of glittery pinecones and pay full price. I drink up morning air with my coffee but go indoors if a bee shows up. What I’m saying is, it wears me out, this zeal people have for live things. There was a time when I loved them, but my way of loving was to skate a thumbnail down the flesh of petals, slot it into the leaves. What I’m saying is, I’m not to be trusted. I will arrange wide vases of flowers for you, but those are dead to begin with.
About the Author:
Emily Kingery is an Associate Professor of English at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, where she teaches courses in literature, writing, and linguistics. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in multiple
journals, and she has been both a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She serves on the Board of Directors at the Midwest Writing Center, a non-profit organization that supports writers in the Quad Cities
community.
About Weekly Flash Prose and Poetry:
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