A Lot

A little loam and topsoil
is a lot.
—Heather McHugh

A vacant lot, maybe, but even such lit vacancy

as interstate motels announce can look, well, pretty

damned inviting after a long day’s drive, especially

if the day has been oppressed by manic truckers, detours,

endless road construction. And this poorly measured, semi-

rectangle, projected and plotted with the familiar

little flags upon a spread of neglected terra firma

also offers brief apprehension, which—let’s face it,

whether pleasing or encumbered by anxiety—dwells

luxuriously in potential. Me? Well, I like

a little space between shopping malls, and while this one may

never come to be much of a garden, once we rip

the old tires from the brambles and bag the trash, we might

just glimpse the lot we meant, the lot we hoped to find.

Source: Philokalia: New and Selected Poems (Zoo Press, 2002)