The Arrangements

First
dust in the air
a dog
yelping
and circling its tail
behind the fence

A small house
behind a chain-link fence
a dog snapping at itself
and then the dust
along the ground
rising

Past a torn screen door
half-open
a woman in a sun hat
and braces on both legs
over worn coveralls
coughing
and working herself
crabwise
down the steps
to the yard

A woman in braces
with a hoe
pivoting
and levering up weeds
Or is it the grass
she’s ripping at
blade by blade
in clumps

In a sun hat
in the dust
I am
there to see it

Me
laid out on the steps opposite
full of things
I did last night and liked
only half watching
her hoe across the street
arcing
her braces
locking and unlocking
and the dust

Why tear up all that grass
for Christ’s sake?
Why with a hoe?
It’ll take months
Someone ought to
let her know
about the dog

“It looks
good like that”
I say
“the grass
it’s beautiful”

“Too much trouble”
she says
“beautiful or not
I’m sixty-two years old
and crippled
I don’t have the time”

And never did
I guess
which is why
forty years ago
she gave it up
because there’s no strength
or thrift in it
beauty
nothing we can
decently use

It lights up the eye
and leaves the hands idle
which is sin
It attracts men
and sent one away again
whistling
with his hands in his pockets
the right or wrong of it
small enough comfort then

She tried it again
in the mirror
and
when her eyes cleared
she looked at her hands
opening
and let it go

I see it now
watching the hoe
waving away the dust
“Hard case”
I think
“hard case”
with last night gone
this morning too
almost
I have things to do
and my ears ringing
What to make of Della?

Dust
at least
that’s what I can
tell people
about the dust

And when the dust settles
thirty by forty feet of
scalped grass
a snaked length of
dog chain
crossing it
between fence and house
and the trees

I like the trees
One in particular
always
green at dawn
and still
if only for
a moment

And after that moment
one morning
in the parted branches
of the same tree
Della
crippled
lopsided
goddess of
protestant horticulture
Della
waving her discount pruning saw
and
looking for the serpent

“Sweet Jesus
Della
get down
You want to
kill yourself
or what?”

“Will you look at these loquats
I can’t even
give them away
I’ve got a kitchen
full
and the ground
still covered with them
I can’t be
picking up loquats
all summer

Not now
not with Jim
the way he is
I want it down”

She runs a hand
over the saw teeth
I pull a leaf
tear it
into two halves
along the vein

She tells me
he’s dying
about the house
they just bought
bad plumbing
bad wiring
and him inside it
choking on
sawdust and
cancer trying
to fix things

“For me”
she says
“No matter what happens
he wants me to
go on living here
And I want the yard cleared
I want
something I can
keep up
No telling how I’d
pay anyone enough to
do all this gardening”

I know
I know

I tell her I know
and go on
sweating and
working the saw all morning
pulling at
amputated branches

It seems
we’ve made a pact
about this tree
the delicate fruit
seed
most of it
but sweet
the bark like grey silk
wood white
unexpectedly white
where the blade
opens it to view

I’ll help her
send it on
ahead of him
agree
that love
is her excuse

She’ll offer me
a bowl of loquats
when I leave
go in to him
believing
I’ve accepted