Seeds

Here we buried her
the way she lived: under
the soggy trees, the dirt smudging her
legs. When she crossed the yard seeds
caught her and clung.

He shaves his mustache for a funeral.
He looks younger when he is grieving,
sees a long span of sadness. There he falters-
under the trees time is for working. He will wake
in the morning feeling he has never worked before.
He never has.

She digs with a spade.
It's a small spade, fits in her hand.
She thinks of how she has made her life
wind around a wire. Water works through a pipe
under her palm. She puts her weight on the one hand-
imagines its splash inside the house.

He looks younger when he is grieving,
thinks of appearances. He fingers his hair in the church-rows.
He hasn't learned how to lose, never gave a day to think about it, to save
her things in little boxes. He can't sit through a sermon-the words weigh
less than a handful of leaves. He prefers a walk.

With the spade and her hand and one knee she makes a tripod.
He could freeze-frame the lemon tree. In its shadow
a woman gardens.

Moana Minton

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