deathgardening

kid me wanted ugly hands
like your knuckles made mountains
veins swollen like rivers with wild 
fish and fingers muscle and squat
you said then work / i a lilly
fairy thing never scrubbed a floor
imagined baking hands as clay
and carving those shadows
with a garden spade or a saw
to flush the delicate out 
with blood / make fat veins
to feed from

road heat baked us soft
no muscle to fight birds
or slugs off our blackberry bush
but you worked me as a garden
pruning the plant of thin fingers
and the plant of dont ever paint houses
like i did and you have to get out
of here because you thought 
i was some kind of genius / and i forgot
how to do anything but rub dirt
on the walls for later

blood the gift / by the end
your heart only gave a weak tenth
of what it took and your veins
cried little streams robbed of rain
you grabbed my hand 
when i tried to apologize 
for the work / you said oh my harvest
no i buried my life in you
to grow as a heart