ALMANAC

i used to love like a gardener –
a wise old thing with heavy-lidded
sparkling eyes, wrinkled (seasoned, ripened)
but sturdy. wearing gardening gloves
inside of doors. thrusting small seeds into
moist soil, dark and deep; creating tiny

underground caves in which to bury them,
those soft little beating hearts.
an implicit subterranean grid.
the prospect of evenly spaced greens.
room for roots, for
burgeoning.

i had confidence that my green thumbs, my
cultivation, and careful, careful tending
of your dormant land would yield corpulent
aubergines, plump tomatoes, empathy;
love (maybe, inevitably).
seedlings of hope coming to fruition.

a gardener has an understanding of the
future in a way that nobody, nobody else does.
they squint their eyes into the sun, press their
palms into the earth, and predict the future based
on patterns of sunlight and
pattering rains.

an early frost, unforeseen, dooms the fall harvest.