Plant the Garden, Poison the Water

“Only you can prevent a forest.”

— U.S. Military Slogan during Operation Ranch Hand, Vietnam War

Operation Ranch Hand (1962–1971): The U.S. military sprayed cancer-causing herbicides across Vietnam, poisoning forests, farms, and water supplies. The aim was to destroy enemy cover. The result: scorched earth, poisoned bodies, a legacy of inherited sickness.

I.

When I was 6, I saw my mother’s foot meet the end of a gardening claw.

I remember its teeth, the sound they made as they sank into her oblivious esh.

Singing metal, a whispered crunch.

I remember blood, and then my mother,

As she soaked the Ohio grass below us like dawn-dew.

What does that say about me? About the moments I hold close.

Before she shouted, or made any declaration of pain,

She turned to me and asked if I was okay.

I don’t know why I hated that so much.

II.

”I just wish he’d die already.”

My father mutters under his breath in the car.

My eyes, locked to our garage door

While the snow came and came and came.

In the house, there is a magician putting on a show.

The audience gathers and watches with religious eyes.

Bouquets of wilting roses crawl out his sleeves.

My mother, the martyr, the lovely assistant.

Always there to clean up the mess.

The melted coins, the dead rabbits.

But I’m still in the car, and the snow is still falling And

the man who is half of me is now half of himself. In my

head, a question. The only one that still matters.

III.

I wake to the man and wife playing war.

Me, the son, the 9-year-old casualty,

Know nothing of the language they use for their battle cries.

My father sprays his words all over this house we made.

In English, he yells to her, “Why don’t you just divorce me already?”

Translation, in his hands, is a blade, and he’s passing his inheritance on to me.

‘Divorce’ sounds onomatopoeic. It severs the bedsheets; the drapes; the family portraits. I

never asked to play diplomat, to plead to gods’ better angels as the earth broke below us.

The murdered home, the burning people.

They taught me every tactic, except for how to leave when a thing is done.

So, there I stayed, lost in the scorch

Dancing around land mines, waiting for my turn.

All Praise Be to Allah In Every Situation!!!

                     for Marcellus Khaliifah Williams.

By the morning sunlight,

Retribution will come in the form of a shedding crow,

With an open beak, and the eyes of witnesses will be a generous offering.

Surely with hardship comes ease.

Even in the heavy bush of night,

Your Lord, O Prophet, has not abandoned you.

In an all-hours diner in Memphis, I silently hum the lyrics to ‘Nothing Takes the Place of You.’

I’m missing him, undeservedly, and under the neon ‘Open’ sign my tears look like beams of sunlight.

I tell myself, like I do, that this will be the last time I make him my entire night.

My half-sleep head starts going to mornings at the chapel, my Grandfather telling me the story of Abo and the crow.

I’m frightened at the way he talks of sacrifice with such ease.

When I sit at the feet of you Lord, my God, will you take my offering?

With anyone I’ve ever loved, I felt only as good as what I was offering.

Was it ever that obvious with you?

In our bed you’d act out control, and I’d play the role of ease.

We’d rehearse until the curtains bled sunlight.

You’d pick at my neck for what was left, my hungry crow.

Then you’d leave, and I’d wait for your call well into the night.

There is no grace, no power, in being alone with the night.

I am my body’s inmate, my soul a collateral offering.

In my final moments, I hope for the comfort of the crow.

They say it comes for incorrect men —the kind who fail You.

Will my burden be lifted? Will my face feel sunlight?

Surely the damned have earned final ease.

O Lord, You promised with surrender would come ease,

How long must I wait under the shadow of the eternal night?

What is a life, where death’s face is more welcoming than the dawn sunlight?

I offer You my blood, my breath, my vengeance as offering.

Alhamdulillah, I turn to You for the last word – only You.

I have made a nest out of my past, fitting for the crow

And her murder, who circle closer to me, their wings cutting the air with prejudice. A crow,

Like a warden, like the State, will come to claim what’s left of my body, and whisper, “There is no ease.”

There is no closure. I beg for all the mercy the world has never given me. You

And the angels will lull me to sleep, as I drift into the forever-night.

There will be poems written of my sacrifice, songs of my offering.

In my last act of defiance, I will bust open the walls. I will make my own sunlight.

I feel exposed, like Abo’s eye when he welcomed the crow

To feast. I’ll never ask for exceptions. I’ll never wish for ease.

When I draw my last breath, I will only ask – was forgiveness ever for me, or for you?

Where will you be when they say it’s your night?

Every death is an offering.

All release is sunlight.