Gardening Poem I
by Adrianna Caputo
Replant the sapling clenched between your fists, and dig the yarded dirt around its root.
The earth beneath your nails is dust,
more dry than you recall,
back on those spring late dawns,
with your mother and her hands in the mulch.
Your knuckles and the pillbugs raw, naked
among unspent dew drops,
which sit swollen on huntsman webs
as false trigger,
the damp fake feast.
Press to the ground the trunk of tree, hold your hands
against that fresh bark. Feel life,
the pulse of it a prayer that splits open the creases in your palms
and bleeds them stale,
rusts the garden,
washes the sphagnum moss of sin
so that you may rest on its bed
and let its fingers grab hold of your spine,
the bones of which belong to your mother,
to hers before her, all of you folded
in the litter of decomposing tree.
The earth beneath your nails is dust,
more dry than you recall,
back on those spring late dawns,
with your mother and her hands in the mulch.
Your knuckles and the pillbugs raw, naked
among unspent dew drops,
which sit swollen on huntsman webs
as false trigger,
the damp fake feast.
Press to the ground the trunk of tree, hold your hands
against that fresh bark. Feel life,
the pulse of it a prayer that splits open the creases in your palms
and bleeds them stale,
rusts the garden,
washes the sphagnum moss of sin
so that you may rest on its bed
and let its fingers grab hold of your spine,
the bones of which belong to your mother,
to hers before her, all of you folded
in the litter of decomposing tree.
Adrianna Caputo was born and raised in the Pine Barrens of South Jersey. She is currently earning her BFA in creative writing. She lives at home with her dog and two cats. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The A3 Review, and Humana Obscura.
