Garden of the Son

In another life I wasn’t homeschooled: no ministers,

shruti box sermons, or gun-nut pigeon rollers.

Today, his mother is a tailor

with math in her eyes. She snips and patches

to the contours of Ohioan mothers,

daughters, soon-to-be-mothers.

Her son is home from uni. There is no hole,

      there is no third eye,

            there is no hellfire

in the Victoria’s Secret bra department.

            There is no shame

in knowing his partner’s cup size,

or the stray white hair

resting on her shoulder blade.

And can you believe it? His father’s laugh

ebbs his keepsake plum trees, shaking

every Midwest plain

with the stories of Fresno vatos.

This is their iniquity.

Where Fresno is an epic

plucked from a psaltery. A hymn

of earth and weather, the Kings River

mist and infant citrus dolloped

            with the sun’s halo.