Putting in the Garden
Jody Burke-Kaiser
I am playing at Persephone,
visiting my mother on her knees
planting French marigolds.
Little reeking suns
to keep pestilence from the garden.
Here the rows are straight and measured
six to eight inches between plants.
Taught string trellises waiting for the vine.
Blooms open and fruit
in the troweled holes
she has made for them.
Onion sets stay
where she has set them.
I am only visiting,
but she presses mint leaves to my lips,
seed corn into my hands,
loans me her muddy shoes
and tells me, pointing
to the back of the seed packet
exactly how deep
into the earth
this conversation can go.