I was after the pear tree with the little hatchet
when my old man grabbed me by the ear, made me
sit on a bucket, put a cherry in a dollar bill,
wrapped it up and said Eat.

The way the juice ran out, the way
the paper balled up, the way the seed went down,
to where I remembered my grandpa grabbing
a rind from my hand, and saying

If you swallow the seeds, they’ll grow inside. Don’t.
When was it I learned to floor an Oldsmobile,
steal watermelons, cut a cork and fill the fruit
with vodka? How they froze and wouldn’t freeze,

until we were young at once and together,
and ate on the car hood, spitting
into the cotton field and quiet
when a seed went down. Mary, Mary, quite contrary.

How we loved on that metal.
How we baked in that sun. How does your garden grow?
And the night came, and the crickets came, and we
came, and came to know the sound of wood cracking in the wind.

My head on your stomach, the mystery of things moving,
things alive, things distant and unbroken and warm.
How I jerked when I heard the seed sprouting.
How I sighed when I heard it passing through.