Village Roots Community Garden
                                                            Milwaukee, July 2010
Lindsay Daigle


Your city stained the neighborhood
with paint-dipped hands, early-riser hands,
gloved hands that pick up dirt to turn it over.
 
To plant the Hungarian wax hot peppers
next to the Heirloom, Green Zebra, Early Girl
tomatoes. To choose
 
one cabbage over another, rhubarb instead
of cucumbers, peat moss instead of gravel.
To hang grape vines from latticed wood

like an acceptance. Your city said not to eat the berries
that line the lake path. Your city said this
while delivering a woodchip toward chalked numbers

on concrete. Your city hopped
on one foot, picked up the woodchip, knew
its ridges, where not to rub for fear of splinters.

You now know too, the wood, the dirt. You know
asphalt, how it cracks over time, crumbles
next to things that grow.