Squash

Summer Squash

Near the end, when my mother

was mostly cotton pajamas

and bones, we could see the tumor

rise out of her belly, as big and round

as a prize-winning tomato.

With every heartbeat, the thing

pulsed its own defiant life,

pushed its roots deeper

into a pancreas and liver no longer

rich enough to be good soil.

My brother, the pharmacist, found

it first while turning mom,

put his hand on the swollen fruit

like he might have felt

for his children, kicking with life,

safe in their first dark and secret

place.  He tried to talk me

into touch, but—watching his hand

rise and fall—I could not bear

such labor, as clinical and intimate

as sex.  When all was said

and done, I returned to my home

states away, to the summer garden I had

hurriedly stuck in the ground—eggplants,

peppers, tomatoes, and squash.

Every previous year, the squash vines

spread green through their end

of the bed, bloomed yellow flowers

as bright as the morning sun, sprouted

a squash or two, then suddenly

wilted and died—I determined this year

would not be the same.  According to

Extension Service Publication 2348,

“Insect Pests of the Home Vegetable Garden,”

I have squash vine borers, clearwing

moths whose larvae chew through

the stems of otherwise healthy plants.

Remedies include “chemical prevention

of egg deposit” and “manual removal

of larval young.”  Bore holes tell me

I’m too late for prophylactic action,

so I take a penknife to the garden,

search plant stems for protruding frass

and a bulge, cut as gently as a lover

along the axis until I see the hidden

living worm, gut the fat white thing,

and, with the blade, scrape the bastard out.