Mikko Harvey is the author of Unstable Neighbourhood Rabbit (House of Anansi, 2018). You can find his poems in places such as DIAGRAM, Gulf Coast, Iowa Review, and Kenyon Review. He is an associate poetry editor for Fairy Tale Review, and he currently lives in Maine. ---------
Complicity
I’m not a man, he said.
I’m a deeply ironic house plant.
And when I looked
closely, more
closely than I had
ever looked,
I found this to be true.
He was a house plant.
What about our relationship?
I said. But his leaves
just gleamed
in the flat
evening light.
Can I at least
count on you
to protect
my secrets? I said.
Things I told you back
when I thought we were...
together?
But his leaves
just gleamed
arrogantly.
I can’t believe
this is happening to me
again, I thought
as I fetched
my little pair
of scissors
and began to snip
his leaves off—
cutting him up
just to be sure
he would never tell
anybody (this was before
even my little
scissors betrayed me).