Manure

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MANURE


Like so many others she profits

off horseshit. Like so very few 


she drives the tractor herself, 

maneuvers the bucket to lay it 


deftly down on the trailer

the way she did the body 


of the old mare, and the older. 

She takes the folded bills I give her


and straightens them out

till they stand up in her hand 


like sprouts unfurling to light 

or sleepers inflamed to attention, 


keeping the book in her head 

as if to make sure the sum total


of our shared labor will come out 

to nothing less than a garden.


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