the planting beds have returned to clay
in the hot evening sun coming aslant
over the grayed wooden fence, skimming
my bare shoulder, neck sticky with salt,
i step between fat purple plums—fallen
and fermenting—on the brick path my mother
weeded, seated in a red wagon, the last
summer of her life. it’s not easy
to balance on the bricks, now sunken
or raised. the basin of my hips cradles
gravity in the soft denim that hugs them.
i am alone in the garden after years
of dressing wounds, wheeling her chair,
reaching sweaty to the profusion
of low-hanging plums my mother waited
for after years of drought and a flash of rain
on the spring days of pollination. which
ones are dark enough to be sweet? soft
flesh in my dry hands. i stretch up between
towering weeds, loose privet, feathery
foliage of asparagus, artichokes opening
to lavender bloom. alone enough to be
spent, to bring the sticky juice to split lips,
to leave behind a cracked heart to the heat
and clay and strangers’ hands that will tend
the garden again though the gate closes to me.
—
Sharon Coleman’s a fifth-generation Northern Californian with a penchant for languages and their entangled word roots who recently won the Maverick award from the ruth Weiss Foundation for her poem “was it for this.” She co-curates the reading series Lyrics & Dirges and co-directs the Berkeley Poetry Festival and is the author of a poetry chapbook Half Circle (Finishing Line), and a book of nano-fiction, Paris Blinks (Paper Press). See her website: sharoncolemanpoetry.com
