Fault -

As I come closer to the door,
the frame between places, I know that I will find the garden.

Beyond the old iron knob,
the first mists will just be lifting, mosslike,
from the fields. And the home I never lived in will be gray,
ramshackled to the oaks and the blue ridge mountains.
Turning the knob will be the act of bravery,
this I keep repeating,
but for some reason, it provides
little.

Every time I am brave I am also disappointed.
I am envious of the farmhouse garden,
tucked carefully in the sunny patch between those trees,
just off the porch,
with burgeoning tomatoes winking in the lifting mist.
I don’t like tomatoes, their color,
the pensive dip of vine and fleck of water,
the skin firm and juicy,
are states I can desire.
And they grow from dark soil,
ground earth, following metal paths,
and wallow in air and sun.

But they are a stupid fruit,
vine-ripened to be jerked off, sliced,
served.
They risk no truths, keep no secrets,
never act brave.

I open the door. And it is just the room, as always.
I want this dense room fresh
with the smell of bushel baskets.

As I lean to the frame,
my mother looks up from the patch,
beckons,
waits.
But I see her with my eyes closed;
the best way to enter gardens,
the best way to pretend.