While weeding
the garden together,
I can do half
as much as you,
often trapping
the trowel beneath
a root,
unable to pull it out
so I let you do it
for me, and quietly
observe
your steady hand
working the handle
like a car jack
prying each thin wire
out of the earth,
a delicate extraction
of veins.
I lean over a pile
of roots,
as you carve into
the dirt
beside me
to dig up another
artery of weeds.
I fondle
loose filaments:
threadbare, tangled,
cut. You grope
at a thick sprout
of fuzzy
green leaves.
I comb. You heave.
Both of us doing
what we know
to do with weeds.