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These days, it seems all I do is tend to this garden and feed this
dog they’ve left me and made me walk and pick shit up after
and dote on. The children, they don’t come home for dinner
or call to let me know and Mickee and Megan snap jaws at each
other like chummed sharks again. What’s there left to do. Knot
each vine to a stake and watch each globe redden and swell
with stretch marks. Look at how they plump–look, how I touch
and they follow so gently from their stems. If I set them here
for you and close my eyes I can see you chewing each one
slowly. Do you remember back on the fields the year we grew
one tomato plant and my brother lectured it was a waste we
didn’t have eggs to eat them with but when the first tomato
finally ripened I cradled it in my hands and you gathered your
hands around mine and we slid it off its stem together we were
so young then and that harvest the tomatoes so sweet they made
my mother’s teeth ache but my teeth were still fine then I could
still bite and break the skin so the juice and seeds burst out
and dribbled down my chin and neck for you to kiss away. We were
also waiting for our children then. Now I press a cherry tomato
on to my tongue and wait for the children to come home.