Greens

Jordan Sanderson

Church was everywhere when I was
Growing up, and I lived inside the fear
Of ruining my life, as if life were a fruit
That couldn’t be rid of rot, a toy
That would never be the same after being
Dropped, a tree that once burned could not be
Unburned. People liked to say one sin
Is no more than another, so we all felt
Like seconds at a salvage store. No wonder
I couldn’t tell the difference between mischief
And trouble and always went straight
For the worst thing imaginable, my conscience
As blistered from stealing a cigarette lighter
From my friend’s mom as from torching woods
Along the creek. The only way to soothe it
Was to become someone even the ex-con
Who lived in a house on stilts by the river
Wouldn’t let in his house, to exhibit oneself
Like a Bosch painting, to become a true believer.
Like my grandmother, I sat for a long time
In the dark, the TV’s light a spell against its stories
About the most depraved parts of human nature.
Eventually, somehow, nihilism inspired compassion,
And seeing someone as a person meant knowing
They, too, would die, and I fell in love. It’s best
To stay outside, my grandmother’s mother said,
When I helped her tie tomato plants to a fence,
Collect eggs from the four or five haggard hens
She kept, rip weeds from rows of field peas.
Like her, I learned to stand beside a stream and hold
A fishing pole for hours, half-blind from the glare
On the water, to drink from that same stream,
To keep something growing year-round, to meld
My mind with my body with sweat. Late this morning,
I harvested mustard greens sprouted from seeds
That washed down the hill into the swamp
During a deluge right after I planted them.
The thought of the cottonmouth I hacked
To death last year didn’t frighten me. The heat
Of raw mustard sketched my body from the inside,
And my shadow fell around my feet like roots.