Second Coming

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SECOND COMING


Because I didn’t like the look of the leaf

and then because I just forgot 


about the cardboard box in the garage,

I never buried the bulbs of Elephant 


Ear. Over the next two years I told 

the old man with four holes in his yard


and one in his heart from an uprooted

daughter about the green of first shoots, 


how they were weathering the heat wave,

what I’ve found to be the best way 


to deal with potworm. It was only 

in the Winter when we sold the house 


and the incessant snuffling of being

found went with it that I knew


some worms can't be run from. On Sunday, 

beneath a sky heavy as elephant hide,


I pulled a different box and all its

dirty contents into the light. He hugged me 


and we both cried, and something behemoth

stirred, lifted its head, trumpeted.    

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