There is a person in this potato
\nthe way there is a person in<\/p>\n
the moon. I press my nose
\nagainst its brown flank.<\/p>\n
I gather its dirt in my ear
\nand listen to its life underground.<\/p>\n
Later, I eat it raw, savoring
\nthe hard flesh and bitter minerals<\/p>\n
like a moonflower surviving
\non frozen light, like me<\/p>\n
on this day twenty years ago,
\ninhaling day-old grass clippings<\/p>\n
from my father\u2019s shirt,
\nclinging to him, too ashamed<\/p>\n
of my grief to look up, his own father
\nsix hours dead. I was proud<\/p>\n
of his tearlessness, as if
\nhe had, for many years, lived<\/p>\n
somewhere sun-bereft and airless.
\nThat night, I peeled<\/p>\n
one of his dreaming eyes open
\nand watched the brown iris rove,<\/p>\n
a potato in a firmament of milk.
\nI poised a finger above<\/p>\n
the slick surface, but I couldn\u2019t
\ntouch him anymore than moonlight<\/p>\n
can warm the white roots of trees.
\nMy daughter doesn\u2018t know this fear.<\/p>\n
She would taste the dirt
\nfrom a horse\u2019s tail or the green shoots<\/p>\n
of rotting garlic. She would die
\nof her hunger for touch if I didn\u2019t<\/p>\n
pluck a quarter from her fingers
\nas she raises it to her mouth<\/p>\n
and hand her a trowel instead.
\nShe walks outside and levers worms<\/p>\n
from wet dirt before re-burying them,
\nrefusing the stillness of earth. I see<\/p>\n
my father twice a year.
\nI worry about his medication,<\/p>\n
and he hopes the years of football
\nspare me in the way they spare<\/p>\n
no one we know. I know now
\nwhat it means to grieve beneath the earth<\/p>\n
when I say to my daughter, book in hand, reading, Now you the flowers. Now you put your finger She sniffs the perfumed pages, as I orbit the room, daydreaming
\nThis is Grandpa<\/em>. He lies beside her,<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>pat the bunny. Now you smell <\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/em>through Mummy\u2019s ring<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nsettling against his forearm<\/p>\n
\nwords for \u2018potato\u2019 and \u2018father\u2019:<\/p>\n