the world is on fire and my mother
is planting tomatoes
we sit down to dinner—like a proper
family my mother says, even though
we are mismatched, even though
my so-called brother is rarely
proper; my step-dad turns on the tv news
scoops up beans, meat, corn
while catastrophes blare
from across the room, and I lose
my appetite
the world is on fire and yes, my mother
has planted tomatoes
after dinner I stumble from the table
fall into homework, head aching
from the strain of searching
for answers I can never find
in a textbook, and in the distance
the sounds of war scream
from our fifty inch flat-screen
and in the greater distance
the sounds of war scream
in someone’s backyard
on my knees
in the basement, pouring out
anger and fear and love for this world
onto neon poster board
with wide-tip Sharpies, praying
the only way I know how, clinging
to the wild hope that my voice
will be heard, that my words
will wend their way to the ears
and hearts of those in power
next day I take my sign, gather
with friends and strangers in a mass
of bodies and voices, hope
rising in cool morning air like mist
dissolving our despair; later
I tell my mother she should’ve come
tell her I could feel the power
of the people pulsing
through my veins, power
bigger than us all, as if justice
and mercy were oxygen
breathed in and bound
to molecules in my blood;
she tells me she stayed home
to tend the tomatoes
the world is on fire, and my mother
is obsessed with those damn tomatoes
weeks later, I’m on my knees again
Sharpie in hand, surrounded by the inky stench
of hope as I flee the horror served up
during last night’s dinner, determined
to do the one thing I can do
in the face of so much hate
and pain, and my mother comes downstairs
crosses to the cupboard
where she stores her preserves
takes two quart-jars of pasta sauce
another of salsa
to add to the basket
she’s filling for the man across the street
who lost his wife in a car wreck
the world is on fire, and my mother
is dousing the flames
with tomatoes
