Do anything, but let it produce joy.
Walt Whitman
the tomato farmer’s wife
waits for seed babies
in Mariachi windows
rad warmed roots
thinned she mourns
the shed ones
she sets up cold frames near crocus
to harden off seedlings for planting
never before the Queen’s birthday
less risk instilling
dirt hum smells ripe
happy worms patrol particulate soil
copious partners in toil romancing
dog day heat she sits in shed shade
headscarf sweat-splattered
silky water
father of the past bends like long grass
pinches suckers worn woolen trousers
strident ink scent banded arms white shirt
husband sings dusky music
offers the first Sweet William
petards water her mouth
she saves the seeds
the tomato farmer’s life
sinful with fleshy days
leaves and yellow flowers
jessed to prickly stems
shiny green globes
late May frost (unfolding old sheets)
he covers them
marching milk cartons
like pencil straight lines
generations of hoverers
ancestral lines longer than green rows
guard against broad mite hornworm
northern root knot fusarium wilt
blight and dodder
he cajoles the innocents
tete a tete with grape clusters
Tosca for romas
Bono to beefsteaks
language they understand
in evening’s skin slices
and Walt Whitman
