Picking Tomatoes

You have to pick the bad ones, too,

or else they’ll rot the rest. This phenomenon

could likely metaphor for gun violence:

confiscate all of them, all. I want to say

there is no violence in my garden.

The dirt is calm, combatless,

but I know this to be untrue.

There are spiders battling beetles

for shelter, the leaves begging

for mercy as the beetles munch

on their stems. Little wars still

matter even when we can’t see the blood.

I can only watch and marvel

at this strange beauty—not the guns—

but the moving, this constant

rebuilding after all’s broken.

I want to uproot myself daily,

but that’s comparing me to a flower,

and I know photosynthesis is a secret

that I will never be told.

Here I am, my knees drowned

in soil, spills of sweat on my skin,

caring for the world in ways

it will never care for me.