i really wanted to write a poem about a certain dog, who recently fell ill and died after a long and happy life.
on peas and your dog
The first time I stopped wearing underwear
was the summer I learned how peas grow:
thin tendrils stretching green out of groggy soil
curly young fingers
barely green reaching up
grasping for posts you hammered into the ground before i got there
You taught me the word: trellis.
I always smelled sweet, like fresh manure
drove home barefoot
Those plants would reach six feet
make white flowers
wind themselves so tightly around those trellises
I moved in the wind more than they did
By the time it came to harvest
a pod for every blossom
I stood halfrooted between the rows
of alternating sugar snap and snow with an old five gallon bucket
Your Dog trailing behind,
she more careful than I to walk softly
4 paws reverent between beds you tilled before i got there
hoping I would turn
to bear witness
reward her good behavior;
your dog never ate peas off the vine
like i did, that summer.
