view from a window box, somewhere in a kitchen in texas
Not sure if this is anything. I wrote it real fast the other day, but I feel that although in its current state, it's not anything special, it still contains something that I could rework into something that is.
view from a window box, somewhere in a kitchen in texas
my mother’s garden is a window box
that extrudes from the wall above her kitchen sink.
it is framed in dingy white shutters
that she never has time to clean.
it is two shelves tall,
and made entirely of glass,
so that she can see into the backyard and watch
the kids as they play,
the sun as it rises.
my mother’s window box garden contains:
- a shot glass stuffed with clover
(it has never been used for anything else)
- a painted wooden cross from her grandmother
(the paint scratched and faded now, smudged by generations of devoted fingertips)
- a pothos cutting in a topo chico bottle
(that used to be mine before i went away to college)
- a flower pot full of dirt and a dead plant she forgot to water
(painted with clumsy hearts and “to Mom” across the side)
- a statue of saint francis
(hands frozen mid-sermon to an audience of birds)
- weeds arranged in vases and pots as if they were flowers
(that she pulled from the grass outside because she thought they were pretty)
- basil.
sometimes i pretend i’m seeing out of her eyes,
back home in my mother’s kitchen,
looking at the world through her window box garden.
i imagine the view.
a rusted swingset
(mismatched where my dad replaced one of the swings with a baby seat in the wrong color)
a hammock
(that she fell off of once, and we all laughed—I wonder if she thinks of it now and feels embarrassment)
an overgrown lawn
(dead in places where the children like to cut across the grass instead of taking the path)
and more weeds to cut
to plant in her garden.
the rest of my family looks down at their hands when they wash the dishes.
the rest of my family teases her for growing weeds and killing flowers.
(the weeds seem to survive her absentmindedness better)
the rest of my family never opens the shutters to watch the sun rise
through my mother’s window box garden—
that little world,
that is all her own
and no one else’s.
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