After Neruda’s Love Sonnets LXVI and XVII
I do not sweat graves because I eat greens.
I ripen from noon till twilight
not sitting eggs,
from no show to not voting for beans,
my car walks from home to village.
I smell different only because it’s not the distance I fear;
I breathe grass deeply and cucumbers prickly
plucked from exalted beds, my kaleidoscopic paint pants all soiled
snag the berry bush, do not dig you
but crave your blossoming.
Nine-to-five neighbors ever cultivate
my conscience with their nagging
recipes, choking my goat to the bitter end.
In this microbe of the multiverse, bugs and bees are stars who
tango, my quiet friends, and I will lie down slow
because I feel you,
because I follow you, Uncertainty,
in plum and particle.