It is the day of my birth and I want nothing
more than a buttered yam and a promise
from the aphids to save some lettuce
for the one who gave me a garden,
in my heart no less, as we sat like kids in dirt
ripping ragweed and spurges up from the taproot
and overcast left the sky
like the foam on blue breast milk, dissipating,
we plan the space between kale and bell pepper
and find seeds to plunge through our mountain ground:
ground made of probiotics, rusty screws and veined worms,
old cans from the mine—
ground of miscarried children and tufts of rabbit fur,
of phosphorus, zinc, and two beautiful wolves
who ate rat poison—
a ground loosened by monsoons in July
but come August, begging for coyote piss
or a human to cry
and I’ve cried many times with my hands tucked
beneath the skin of this desert
so I know the soil is rich.