Reaping wheat
Back in the old country,
Mom was once attacked by a viper
Whose head she crushed
Under a rock before
It could bite her, now had me
As point man leading us
Down narrow, overgrown
Path infested with hard-
Of-hearing innocent garter snakes,
To our vegetable patch
Five hundred yards behind
The tenement house where
You could see her crossing
Herself and me pounding holy
Hell out of a pan so hard
All unknown and treacherous
New world devils would sense
The urgency of the message
And stay worlds, worlds away.
