Annette Sisson

First Marriage

Patches of crabgrass, overgrown weeds,
endless scatterings of twigs—our first
yard flanking a rental the size 
of a playhouse. We raked brush, 
fussed with the rusted mower. 
The landlord, wary, brooded over 
our unmatched names on the lease, 
scoffed at the poem etched inside 
our twin bands, but we settled in,
shoveled a garden, planted marigolds,
tomatoes—uncovered a peony bush
that thrived in sunlight, heaps of silken
petals. After heavy rain I carried
a broken stem to the kitchen, floated
the bloom in a glass bowl. An ant
wandered across the table, then another.
Brand-new to gardening, I hadn’t seen
them churning deep in the stamens. 
Tiny bodies circled and thrashed
as I sprayed them down the P-trap.

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Annette Sisson’s poems appear in Penn Review, Rust & Moth, Cider Press Review, West Trade Review, and others. Her second book was published by Terrapin (2024), and her third is seeking a publisher. In 2019 she won The Porch Writers’ Collective’s poetry prize. In 2024 and 2025, she was a finalist for the Charles Simic Poetry Prize, and her poems have been finalists in River Heron Review’s and Passager’s 2025 contests. annettesisson.com; https://www.facebook.com/annette.m.sisson; IG annettesis