persistence in love, daily exorcism
of self-deception, i.e., write poems.
there is no choice between perfection of
the life and perfection of the work, no
need to choose. .. “the imperfections are
what i depend on.”
—Sam Abrams
& quoting Joel Oppenheimer

What is left between us now is the dependable
earth, separating, the earth making
way for thick tubers, earth rising with
the rich crumble of our daily labors.

Not the photo opportunity of the Kansan
with thick glasses, the man who holds up
for the camera his three-pound carrots,
unsocketed from the soil and pungent
with earthsmell, golden with carotene.
He is no longer young, and one tuber is split,
burst open with age to the raw core of greed.

These are prizeworthy. Unpalatable, but
one for the books, as if, if we were to carry
the dung and haul the water, our harvest would
likewise reach some whistling proportion
and be snapped up by a major publication.
Until, next issue, we are upstaged—

A woman from Alabama who smiles from the snap-
shot of her rutabaga, a fleshy taproot swollen
to the color of bruised ivory. A chainsaw
wouldn’t rip its ironwood heart, drought-gorged
on scarce tapwater moccasined to the garden
after midnight, a defiant self-delusion bred from
the whispering of water to the soil. Her eyes want
us to believe that we too might do as well.
The choice being ours.

Winter readers buy it all: seed and story,
Miracle Gro and tiller, the you-too book with
photographs and easy-step instructions.
We put our backs into it, willingly,
producing small imperfect fruits that snap
sweetly between the white teeth of our children.

And what we leave unharvested is browse
for deer, imperfect images that shift in twilit
sideyards. We darken the house to see it
more clearly: snow broadcasting white seed
over purple furrows. No photograph can capture
by available light the deer returning
like children, stealthily, for sweets.

We easily grow to depend upon each other;
there are no more bad years. And that breath-
held moment of imperfect thievery,
light-fingered from a winter dusk, is our seed—
swelling, sprouting thick stems, twining strong
roots into the garden tilth—sown a leaf touch
apart; leaving no distance between, no faint regret,
only the persistence to keep reaching.
Find water. Drink deep.