Widow Gardening

She digs in the garden, pulls weeds
by their roots and leaves them to wilt
between rows, puts in beans and tomatoes,
pinches fine grains of lettuce and carrot
seeds through her thumb-finger press.
She hadn’t considered the possibility
of pleasure, begins to cry and turns
to fill old holes from the woodchucks
he bombed and sprayed and trapped,
battling the pox of their appetite
for whatever was tender and green,
a hunger hard to beat to the first bite
of what grows to be eaten, what lives
to die, how wide and fast that mouth.