The Steaming Beast

Spring.

new blossoms force their way open across the garden after the dead winter. the air has the first thin smell of lilacs and the promise of tomatoes. across the patch of turned earth, the beast is cooking. steam rises thick and sour from the middle of it, a slow furnace of rot where the old waste melts down into warm mulch.

he walks toward it.

the great stinking monster sits half-buried in the corner of the yard. the smell hits first: ammonia and sweet rot, the deep heavy stink of fermentation working under the boards.

he lifts the lid.

the steam billows straight up into his face.

black banana peels. coffee grounds gone to paste. eggshells half-swallowed. potato peels curling pale like dead skin at the bottom of a greasy sink. he tips in the day’s grease and scraps. they slide and slap into the dark with a wet sound.

the heap settles.

it lets out its low belch of steam and gets back to work.

turning death into next summer.

black rot in the dark,
and by summer, tomatoes,
the beast keeps its word.