My mother wanted flowers, fragrant
and lovely. So she flooded young seeds
until they boiled in midday heat,
and when they didn’t bloom, she thought
she could will blossoms with sullen silence.
My father wanted fruit trees, hardy
and useful. So he baked saplings in the sun
until they brittled into sand,
and when they didn’t ripen, he thought
he could shout them into submission.
At night, I snuck into the garden
and sang my pleas into the leaves.
Still, the gardenia blackened as if scorched,
the jasmine shot its stars into the ground,
the peaches puckered around unformed pits.
In the end, all we grew was oleander,
pink flesh burst from clay,
blowing sweet poison to the wind.
