every year around the same time
when the flies get lazy
and the air starts smelling like a wet sponge left in a coffee cup
i walk the back road out past the dump.
you wouldn’t know it’s a road.
half gravel, half apology,
lined with old tires,
burned-out microwaves,
and one busted recliner
that’s been slumped against a tree for as long as i’ve lived here.
i bring a thermos of coffee,
sometimes a joint.
sometimes not.
depends on the weather
and whether i feel like seeing it all too clearly.
i don’t go out there for anything special.
but they show up anyway.
the tomato plants.
wild.
stray.
accidental.
like the earth coughed them up
from a broken compost heap
or a lunch someone threw away
in 1994.
they’re never in the same spot,
but i always find them.
stingy little vines
among plastic bags and old batteries,
sprouting pale green fruit
like they don’t know where they are.
and every time i see them
i feel it again—
that same old slow punch
right behind the ribs.
it’s not the tomatoes.
not really.
it’s what they remind me of.
how something can grow
even where it shouldn’t.
even where it wasn’t asked to.
even after someone
tried
very
hard
to bury it.
i don’t talk about it.
haven’t in years.
what happened.
what didn’t happen.
what should have never
even been possible
in a house with curtains and birthday cake
and Sunday morning cartoons.
but the plants grow.
they always grow.
they stretch up like fingers,
narrow and brittle,
trying to grab the sky
with their innocent stupidity.
and i stand there a long time,
watching.
sometimes i pick one.
bite into it.
they taste like metal
when they’re that young
or like nothing
at all.
then i do them a favor
and stomp them.
all of them.
heel to root.
leaf to pulp.
i crush them until the juice runs dark
and the stems snap
and there’s nothing left
but the smell.
and i’ll return there the next year
hoping they got the message.
i’ll walk out there
like i always do
with my coffee
and my silence
ready to kill them again.
because some things just need to learn
to take a hint
and stay dead
forever.
