Fruitless​
Jeremy Martin

There’s an icicle garden in my front yard.
Stalactites become stalagmites. I pluck them 
from rooftops of houses with the lights off,
four cars in the garage. 
I am responsible for skyscrapers.

My garden melts in the springtime.
I return to houses with the lights off
on my hands and knees, I plant flowers that 
I will never nurture. Every petal that darkens,
a new flower in its stead. I’m not sure who notices because
I can’t make eye contact.

Nothing can grow here,
save for indifference, flourishing in the unspoken,
in the alleyway dumpsters, filled with caviar and half-empty champagne bottles,
the midnight bus downvalley, the faded letters of the boarded-up-bakery
on main street, the walls caving in.
There’s a new Chase Bank down the street. 

Maybe I am no better,
to reject my own soil, where old roots remain. Roots that 
entangle with others, growing together, 
defining one another, birthed of one land.
The ice always seems to melt, but
I know how to photosynthesize.

Jeremy Martin (Pomona '25) is from Aspen, Colorado. He likes 70s R&B, wearing bright colors, and staying up too late.