What doesn’t matter to the mason bees in my father’s garden- Emily Harman

What doesn’t matter to the mason bees in my father’s garden

Emily Harman

is that his body was found in the basement.

My mother came home to the dog waiting

at the top of the stairs and she knew,

could hardly stand when the pastor came to hold her

and now when the tomatoes ripen in August

I will have to eat them all.

How the swollen flesh splits,

burns black in the unflinching sun,

molds gray-green and soft

to the touch. The give of the skin

beneath your fingers. I mean

the giving in. The honeyed rot of it.

Still hanging on the vine.

Poetry

7 January 2026

Emily Harman is a poet based in the mountains and forests of the Pacific Northwest. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Shore Poetry, Bellingham Review, Wildness, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. Emily is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Montana, where she teaches creative writing and serves as Poetry Editor for Cutbank. She can usually be found outside.