All day I pull kikuyu from the soil.

He cuts lemonwood spears and

juices the last of the grapefruit,

mixes it with honey. Air is citrus

and heavy
bees in and out the hive like

breathing.

This day with my son.

We speak of death, and it’s far away

as the sun. I say I want to go

                                                coffinless 
into the ground, and I remember how

my mother pressed new plants down,

palm taut and open— how she bought

seeds at my birthday

love-in-a-mist, ruby carnations; 
how she warned about kikuyu

rhizomes thick as a man’s fingers,

creeping.

There, kneeling in the garden,

my mother’s instruction. 
Now, at thirty, long after her warning

failed me—

in my dirt-stained jeans,

pulling at clumps of old grief

my son in the grass beside me. 
How will this day exist, in the

aperture of his memory?  
mother on her knees, at war

with the weeds,

commending her body

                                       to darkness.