July 26, 2022

loose dirt

The peas have become a kind of shorthand. They sprawl inelegantly across the raised
beds, having outgrown the trellis. Ditto for whatever is happening to the crab apple 
while I’m under the ether of sleep, and that place in the garden where the dandelions 
threaten to seize the controls, and further in, where bees stumble across flowering tips 
of purple basil as a punishing sun crawls overhead. How to pull a weed enmeshed 
in the roots of a blooming thing. How to square the angles and rest in the center 
when the world’s a pinball. The work is dainty and endless. I climb into the loose dirt, 
reach into a thicket of stems. I try to believe the leaves will come back. 
I keep my distance from the thrum to avoid a sting. I watch for signs of mutiny.
I think of all the words for rain, and I call them into the still air.