Green Garden

                 Mother grew the garden,
                 Cut and tossed the salad
                 Days I lay in torpor;
                 Stuffed with her baked bread

                 Heavy and warm, white
                 As her great breasts and belly,
                 Hunched I lay
                 In my new matrix, tossing.

                 She lay in the cool evening
                 Dark as her womb, smelling
                 Her green garden;
                 She lay on the hard bench

                 Which she had made, chewing
                 Salad she had tossed, feeling
                 The pains of labor raking
                 In the garden.

                 While I crouched between
                 Garlic and roses in the mud,
                 A white letter slid
                 Like a knife

                 Into the green garden: "Greetings":
                 Crude caesarean ripped
                 But not untimely—
                 Now I had a father?

                 How would I toss my salad days—
                 Buy bread or get?
                 Both wombs are torn, the green and warm;
                 Is post-partum with me yet?
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