family gardens

To mother is to cut off your finger,
plant it in the garden.
Wake up everyday, crying on the soil
as the sun rises.

Tend to the cuticle bushes
and knuckle stalks.
Regurgitate lunches onto gaping sprouts,
sit in the lawn chair all night long

guarding your seed from scavengers.
Watch the blossom of brilliant
reds and yellows exploding
on the face of what was once a mere digit.

Helpless as passerbys stop and breathe
deep your disembodied fragrance.
You struggle with one stranger,
who tries to prematurely pluck

the narrow stem, and a sharp thorn
or blade of leaf cuts deeply
and you withdraw, shocked. To mother is to surrender
your flesh to undecided freedom.