Burning

Kissing the Ripe Tomatoes From New Hampshire I write home to say I miss die tomatoes I planted then abandoned to come here. From my shady spot between two silver tines of birches, I imagine my tomatoes untended, drooping on their vines. My seven year old neighbor sends me a message: Tell her I will kiss the tomatoes for her, and I want to write back again, Oh yes! Walk into the rotting garden softly, as when you try to surprise my sleeping cat, or when you turn in little dances you make up for yourself. Tuck them in among their own wet leaves and the tatters of blue shirt I gave them. Press your lips against their cracked, exhausted skins and let the warmth of your breath buffer them from frost. If they must fall, unpicked and wasted, let them go down as we all should, whatever our accomplishments, touched by those who care where we are going next and who grieve our going, kissed by a child in our ripeness. —Maggie Anderson Murder Among The Petunias Some last communication lies scripted on this dirt under ravaged leaves Only a few petals left on ten shades of pink The poison, I see, has done its work well Leaving shells snails have melted into their silver language. I translate. ,$!&¦ u'//^:«? —Janice Townely Moore P>JS~' ·'¦+¦¦¦%.':.-.. SV Burning Do you still love me? he asks and pulls out, bloodied as if from razors. She collects the towel thickness against its soaked middle. Already he is outside hosing down the dry, stunted grass. Going to the sink she runs cold water over the oblong stain. Don't you know it's the best time to prevent babies, he will say as he unfolds a strong bath towel from the closet shelf. If only she could rest with one ear to the coming night and one to the cicadas, the coiled ache might leave her body like a knotting rope pulled slowly through peepholes. On the moist pad of lawn he waves to a boy slinging his basketball onto the pavement, hard like gravel. No mothers call him in. —Linda P. Burggraf 39 ...