Living in Sin
Today is close enough
To resemble their garden
16 years ago
Singing the value of every child they
Produced
On the vines and in the leaves
Burying songs in the ground
To come up as beautiful red tomatoes
More priceless than as money is not
Julius was southern
As southern as an antique name
And Mary Ray was his girl, not his
Wife or her husband
Proudly rebellious
By living in sin and some past idea
And making it work
Julius would bubble bottles of four roses
Balancing a guitar on his knee
(balancing a melody on his voice)
and he would write a song someday
as simple and as flawless as he would die
the one he called the money song
the one to buy the house he rents
and the one to afford him more time in the garden
working on the southern scents of roses
and Mary Ray, who this poem is about
Her caloused hands from
From picking flowers and picking guitars
I looked at the moon one night
That sat above their backyard
Like some dangling bulb from an
Electric cord
As their songs moved around me
I realized how much trees love sound
And then it was me
And I was the last thing to come out
Of their garden
