Anastasia Stelse

All summer we tended tomatoes: staked

stalks as verdant leaves unfurled, veins

spreading into the fingertips of new growth.

We watered, fertilized, filled plots with love

tokens and improvised compost—crushed

eggshells, snippets of hair, orange peels.

When the first leaf wallpapered itself

yellow, we plucked it. Washed our hands.

But leaves kept turning, curling. We snipped

branches. I didn’t think I’d lose the plant.

Anastasia Stelse is a native of southeastern Wisconsin,