Please Do Not Eat the Ivy.

For Dust You Are
Cursed be the ground because of you.


I watched Jesús, our gardener,
push the lawn mower,
in a shirt drenched with sweat
that clung to his browned skin.

Jesús planted a garden in our backyard— structured and prim.
From my room I could hear
my father cursing Jesús
for breaking the sprinklers in his absence.
A flow would well up from the ground
and water the whole
surface of the Earth
turning the pool into a muddy mess.

After my father’s business failed
he could no longer afford Jesús.
I watched my father
push the lawn mower
sweat dripped from
the crown of his sun-burnt forehead.
In all his attempts to plant a garden
the backyard grew wild.

I could hear my father cursing Jesús
for the weeds growing in his absence.

I.E.L