Quarantine diary: Day 110

Photo by Alli Hartmann on Unsplash

Every morning, I check the
vegetables growing in
our shaggy garden.

I pull aside the yellowed
cucumber leaves
their spines leaving silent
traces on my fingers
delicate pain.

I caress the bumpy smoothness
of the baby cucumbers,
I squint at the mold spots on
the tomatoes
unsure what to do?

I’ve never grown tomatoes before
not all on my own
in our shaggy strip of
a backyard
where the earth churns out
old nails, broken glass
the edges dulled with
a fine sanding of time + dirt.

I check the squash flowers,
peer inside the feathery flowers
soft like tissue
to see if there’s a bee sleeping
in the folds.

I stare at my garden
it holds the secret
I ask it to tell me
of life, of how to live a
quiet life striving for
nothing more
than your patch of sunlight
in a shaggy garden
of…