Whether soaked or carefully placed, you’ll soften beneath wet soil. Your cotyledons

anchor while leaflets hug the stem to ride through dirt, unfold and await your fate. 

Will there be enough water and sun? Unless a neighbor shoots the groundhogs, 

you’ll worry they’ll dig beneath the fence. You’ll pray for deft fingers to squish 

yellow bugs that lace your leaves. But if all goes well, long tender green pods, 

dangling from your plants, will conjure tenderness.

Molly O’Dell (she/her) lives in southwest Virginia and loves being outdoors. She’s a mostly retired physician with an MFA from the University of Nebraska. Her poems and essays have appeared in JAMA, Chest, Calyx, Plainsongs Review, Whitefish Review, Friends Journal, AGNI,  Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel and more.  Her books include Off the Chart, a chapbook published in 2015, Care is a Four-Letter Verb, a multi-genre collection from 2021 and Unsolicited 96 Saws and Quips from the Wake of the Pandemic, written for her public health colleagues and anyone else tired of SARS-CoV-2. Visit her website here, and follow her on Instagram and Facebook.