1.
At 2 A.M. I slip into
My garage and padlock
The door behind me.
From their wall pegs
My garden tools emit
A faint green light.
They comfort me; the piles
Of decaying newspaper
Also comfort me.
I stand a long time
Over my plastic herb trough.
Whatever is at hand
I am prepared to use:
Grout, putty and rock salt,
Bug repellent, a cake
Of Sterno, cracked
At the edge and half-fermented,
Paint thinner, pruning seal,
Dry wall spackle.
The night is a gift.
Its fine hair leaks
From every pore and abscess.
I pull out a hank, sift it
Gently between my fingers.
I add a cup of bone meal,
A length of frayed hose.
Through my window
And his, I see Mr. Poole’s
Withered arm propped on
A doily, his white hand
Flexing in front of the TV.
I siphon his quiet frustration
Into my trough. I scrape in
The rind of bacteria
From a warm juice can.
It fulminates. The night soil begins
To pucker and turn acrid.
I hold on to the edge
Of the trough, my eyes watering,
Afraid to breathe. Slowly I let
My hand down into the mixture,
When I pull it out, it is rich
To the second knuckle.
2.
Down the street, on the steps
Of the white cement-block cottage,
A thin man practices his harmonium.
Occasionally a wrong note
Echoes off the carport
And he smiles to himself,
Secretly pleased. He calls
The song “Night Soil”
Because it penetrates
Everything. He pictures it rising
Like a bead of mercury
Through the TV tower
Over the Hackensack swamp.
In the evening I sit
With my daughter under
That long red tower.
We pitch bread and stones
Across the mud-flat
Into the worn tires
Which pock the far shore.
The geese ignore our bread.
They funnel through the reeds,
Barking flame, as if drawn
By some TV signal.
When the light drains
They erupt and follow
The concrete spillway
Downstream. I turn then
Toward my daughter, crouched
Over the spillway, part
The leaves of her hair.
I have saved three of her follicles
To plant beneath the backyard tomato stake.
I covered them, last night, in dung
And bone meal. When I entered
The garden she took my free hand
And we rubbed grease
Into the spade-shaped leaves.
The white veins bristled;
Tomato flies cowered on the stem.
Soon leaf musk drew
The raccoons up from their sewer bed
And onto the front lawn.
Bone meal, my daughter sang,
Bone meal, as if that could somehow
Ward off raccoons. I breathed in
The callow smell of the night soil,
Filled my lungs with it.