Enough money from marigolds
to buy everything but the morning--

We could sell these things and make enough
money-- we  wouldn't have to work for anyone

He said in his wrinkled grey shirt to 
his partner in furrow jeans. They were matching 
"Earl's Landscaping" t-shirts-- crows-footed
at the seams of their bodies-- 
They are the kind of people who can 
hear their weed-wackers kicking endlessly at
the asthmatic arched backs of dry grass
even when they lay next to women at night--
At night when their windows breathe
When like flower necks or toad-stool cheeks--
they learn how to hold other people
from their intimate experiences with plants.
Lawn mowers haunt their hallways for how they
became Gods-- crafting the earth
with a pairing knife and telling it to dance.
The men sit on the curb like hollow flower pots.
Big-bellied and lonesome, they wait for mums or winter. 
He would sell the marigolds-- shake loose their 
roots and dust their fire skulls for spare change--
The men don't have children but they know they'll 
arrive someday like dandy lions or prickly-weeds--
to be yanked lose by their fathers leathered fingers. 
The smell of mulch under nails is an omen
to all the women who have ever tried to love a God
-- They think about girlfriends 
and finger nails and dirt and the firey heads of
marigolds-- and they think
about how small God must be to shape the
Earth like them-- peel themselves loose
every morning at the protest of the sun-- lite
cigarettes with the heads of marigolds-- he says
Enough money enough money enough money
in tuna salad teeth mixed with pieces of mulch--
he tells the shadows of sleeping women he will have
Enough money for dandy lions if they could
just sell flowers-- take their
roots from the oatmealy soil bed and
run away with the orphans-- a truck full of a 
kidnapped chrysanthemums and broken-necked
lavender. The flowers try to breath outside the the dirt--
roots naked and snaggly-- intestines or 
garden hoses or linguine. Enough money for paper plates
and name-brand rice crispies and children 
that make you forget about the dandy lions--
Enough money to trace blood into the shadows
of women at night and bake them wedding cakes
from tiers of moss or peat on the sidewalk--
plant them gardens instead of children-- light
candles with the marigolds to banish the smell of
mulch from every hallway-- weed
the dandy lions-- Enough money for filling
in flower pots on the curb with something other
than fire--Enough money
to let God teach the windowsill how to dance like
a candle--Enough money to plant seeds in backs 
of their truck like diamonds-- grow rings
for the blood-shadows of women in their beds--
purpose when it's winter and there's nothing to distract
anyone-- fall in love with something other than a
notion of prostituting the flowers to quit being Gods 
for one morning-- Enough money to buy the morning
and auction it off to the kicking legs of someone
else's weed wackers and pairing knives--
bleed the earth like the wrinkles of a t-shirt--

We could sell these things and make enough
money-- we  wouldn't have to work for anyone

Enough money to work for no one but the necks of
flowers-- exorcise the lawn mowers from the hallways
so the shadows of women can rest easy in the
oatmealy soil of their beds at night-- grow
marigolds quiet like church candles-- blow
them out with the morning-- Enough money 
to sleep through the sun like men 
instead of mulch fingered Gods
haunted by marigolds and dirt and
their own fingernails.