Yesterday, had I been a millionaire
able to hire a gardener or two, I —
I still would have knelt in the earth
and brushed back the crunchy leaves, to see,
touch, oh! green shoots of new garlic.
Yes, pruned scratchy rose bushes
sucked blood from my thorn-stabbed thumb;
cut back the lower aspen branches,
plucked up the dry and dead tomato and
pepper plants, snapped off hollyhock stalks.
Yes, even spaded the earth and
poked my finger into the rich soil
and planted white onion bulbs. Now,
the earth under my fingernails—
curved sliver of the rich new moon.
* * *
James A. Ciletti has been the Pikes Peak Poet Laureate, the president of Poetry West, and is a co-owner of the independent bookstore Hooked on Books. Ciletti has published two books of poetry, won numerous awards of his work, and has debuted the first chapter of his upcoming novel in a writing magazine. He also teaches creative writing classes at the Fremont Correctional Facility.
