How Well He Nurtured What He Planned to Pluck

His garden, after he ripped away zoysia, the second year 
of his third marriage. Tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, verdant rows 
of earth softened into beds swaddling seedlings until harvest, (this is
     not) 
a corner left for my flowers. (the story) His cigarette smoke looped
     the sky, 
we watched it twirl, fade into starlight. I poked my seeds too deep, (I
     want)
we counted nasturtiums and marigolds who bloomed their way out,
caressed their fiery petals burning against twilight. Before my body
     fruited 
he asked to stroke the buds forming beneath my skin. I fell asleep
     against 
his shoulder and he held me like a father. Later his hands roamed, (to
     tell) 
after he stopped pushing seeds into the soil, before he named me
     untrustworthy 
bitch after I told his wife (my mother) everything. No longer guarding
     green 
from larva, he became teeth gnawing away my blooms each night.

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