growing fat on stolen
community garden veggies
while the bombs drop on
our people halfway across
the world
eating grilled cheese with
the good heirloom stripey
tomatoes my white neighbor
transplanted to their plot &
forgot about
if i stood on the street while
the world burned & screamed,
if a cop shoved me for it, did
i do anything?
i grew my plot for the wasps &
the bees, calendula straggling over
the ground, autumn covered in
orange—like the marshall’s vest
at the march.
they stood a foot shorter than
the pig, their chest puffed up to
face him, they thanked him for
the threat, their cigarette
puffed
gray smoke in his snout—
like the fires from the bombs,
still falling, like the fires lit by
settlers
defending themselves
in advance, defending themselves
with barricades of dead children’s
bodies—
i assume—i just sit
in the garden where the
ladybugs devour aphids &
tomatoes go soft, rot & fall
to the ground,
while in gaza they are
running out of food, where
down the street our
neighbors live in tents
& starve.
we raised money & shared posts
& then? turned it out, tried to get
it in as best we could, sucking
& fucking in the end
of the world.
like the wasps, buzzing over
every last patio beer & sour
garbage can, gathering the
last nutrients before
the frost.
Aaron El Sabrout is a transgender alien currently living on unceded Haldimand Tract Territory (Haudenosaunee, Michi Saagig Anishinaabe, Attawondaron). He is originally from Cairo, Egypt. He makes comics, art, poetry, and video games, all of which are weird and trans and to do with plants somehow. His work has been published in We Want it All: A Radical Anthology of Trans Poetics, featured in the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, and he is a recurring contributor to T! zine. His games and zines can be found at https://toreachpoise.itch.io. As you read this he is likely out dreaming of mushrooms or planting seeds for liberation.