An Unspoken Agreement (with Someone Buried)

It is dangerous, 

to choke out 

their dreams

in dirty water.

Dangerous—

when I disdain the effigy of he,

my Nannu 

who wept when I got in

and Nanna,

prayed ornately

with supplicating hands,

under Madonna

in some garage in Liverpool,

for a beautiful garden

in the lucky country, ideally

with a pot plant on a windowsill, and

for the privilege of 

an ancillary room to call the office of,

a paralegal. I water 

the plant.

It, and I, have come

(to an unspoken agreement).

I pour

        the cup

                   of water,

                              half full,

                into the

                                   dead

          plant

into what

once (was)

Hopeful

Leaves will unfurl a fluent tongue,

will curl again

                        This is probably about the plant but definitely not.

Nannu used to call me,

To spell for Christmas cards,

a good omen.

I would pick up again.

So I pick up a pen, and

an Affidavit is foreign, yet

a poem slips into misstatement.

A plant is home grown.

Idle time,

truth mishandles, 

when I free pour into the cup

murky water.

Second generation, I am 

but for an immigrant dreamer

quid pro quo, with Ave Maria

my privileged presentiment

as I quell over poems. 

It, and I, have come 

(to an unspoken agreement)

the sower will distill the water.

But my hands are ink-stained,

Nannu’s earth stained.

I hope he now       whispers prayers because

  under the mulch, 

Nanna has, since   forgotten the language

of which they’d command my name,

So I erect/arrest myself

upon some podium,

before a Brescia loungeroom of ghosts with

the curly hair I straighten, 

the animated expression I tighten

in the name of professionalism,

to water the plant.