That fall morning we moved to Concord
the neighbor made a V with his fingers
and wriggled his arm like a charmed snake.
High school ASL class failed us
so he wrote on a legal pad: VINES.
He mimed the digging and ripping
I didn’t plan on doing, and pointed
to the hydrangeas lining his side
of the ruins. I recognized the next sign:
Two hands around his throat. But yard work,
as is wrote, is not for fall. So I drank.
By spring they’d conquered the yard. Scaling
our rotting fence, they smothered his well-groomed blooms.
I kept my eyes down coming and going.
But coming out my skin that sober summer,
I needed someplace still to stow my hands.
The vines, having lived there first, had trouble
letting go – I dug for hours, tearing roots,
wrangling nooses off half-dead flowers.
Raquel and I laid down mulch and stone
knowing the weeds would break through
here and there, eventually, as they do.
We will pluck each out together, when it comes.
Afterwards we panted in the landscaped side yard
beerless, hands covered in dog shit
and cuts from brambles. A cardinal
landed in the rescued hydrangeas
and it sang like you: terribly
but without shame. No clouds,
the flowers were unceasingly yellow.
note: this is one of a series of poems in a chapbook I’m working on entitled “yellows”. to read them in their intended order, start here.