the garden family

my father met my mother on the train tracks
leading out of Hackensack, New Jersey.

she was clad in blue and embossed with blisters;
he was wearing a black sweater and had a stumbling tongue.

the night they exchanged promises, the moon
was hiding under a cool blanket of factory smoke.

my mother wore a black n’ beige dress,
my father was decked in the finest leather shoes.

their love was a budless stem:
to appreciate it, you had to do some gardening.

the botany of our family is complicated.
i am a shovel and my brother is soil.

my mother is a watering hose and
my father sets with the sun. come winter,

she will freeze in time and we will
barely see him through the clouds.

the occasional drought will manifest into our lineage,
but my mother will burst like a floodgate.

sometimes, it'll get so cold that the crops will be frostbitten,
but my father will break the barrier of clouds.

i will help dig my brother out of messy situations
and we will be

just a plot of land on the map of our family forest,
strengthening our roots like black n’ blue on the train tracks.