Daddy would drop purple-veined vines
Along rows of dark loam
& I’d march behind him
Like a peg-legged soldier,
Pushing down the stick
With a V cut into its tip.
Three weeks before the first frost
I’d follow his horse-drawn plow
That opened up the soil & left
Sweet potatoes sticky with sap,
Like flesh-colored stones along a riverbed
Or diminished souls beside a mass grave.
They lay all day under the sun’s
Invisible weight, & by twilight
We’d bury them under pine needles
& then shovel in two feet of dirt.
Nighthawks scalloped the sweaty air,
Their wings spread wide
As plowshares. But soon the wind
Knocked on doors & windows
Like a frightened stranger,
& by mid-winter we had tunneled
Back into the tomb of straw,
Unable to divide love from hunger.