Weeding a Dog's Grave

Weeding a Dog’s Grave

Sometimes the rank that sleeps in graves seeps out
into the oval mud around the tree
I planted. Good as coffee brewing, sweet
as rot, the odor settles in a cloud
of baby’s breaths that rooted where I laid
them near the trunk. Sometimes my hands sink in
deep enough for soil to spring like skin
against my palms. My fingers meet the graze
of mucilage and root hairs inside the stir
of maggot’s and of time. They grip to pull.
then muscles lengthen, and I wrench. The cruel
exhuming turns two stubs to wrists. From open earth
the kneading hands ascend. Ten claws, the stems,
the dripping roots, the cloy of death—I’m them.

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