Scarlett Peterson

Every Garden a Munition Plant

Uncle Sam says garden to cut food costs,
grow vitamins at your kitchen door,
plant the seeds of victory, then comes
the violence, the shoot to kill, protect
your victory garden with a handheld spray-gun,
a call to action: join the women’s land army,
this, our feminine legion of soil and manure
bids you to do your bit on the food front,
to grow your own vegetables for victory,

then again we bleed into violence, write
our food is fighting, an infantry of pole beans,
tomatoes pulpy with want of blood.

Will you have a part in victory?

Let your fear of famine devour you,
supplement your rations with a victory garden!
Heed the warmonger’s call, Women! Farmers
can’t grow all your vegetables, dip your hands
in shit and soil, gardens love compost. Even you
can grow your own—  The seeds of victory insure
the fruits of peace we never seem to reap.

Note: Italicized lines are pulled from various
sources of WWI and WWII propaganda.

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Scarlett Peterson received her M.F.A. in poetry at Georgia College. She is currently working on her PhD at Georgia State University. She is editor in chief of Exhume Literary Magazine, a poetry reader for Five Points and a former assistant editor of poetry for Arts and Letters. Her poetry has appeared or is upcoming in Five2One, Pennsylvania English, Ink and Nebula, FRiGG, Moon City Review, Fire Poetry, Cosmonauts Avenue, Peculiar, Pidgeonholes, Gargoyle Magazine and Ponder Review. Her nonfiction has appeared in Madcap Review and Counterclock Journal.