A boy who loves dirt
births new rivers in the garden with a hose

uncovers small sanctuaries—
a pair of roly-polys unfurling, an earthworm

wriggling back into the ground.
Inside the house, a mother

sets her table with a bowl of rice,
steam rising like doves.

And it takes just an instant—
small brown hands shoving fistfulls into a hungry mouth.

A desecration in a bowl, a mother’s shriek
with only a mother’s tenderness.

I wish I could tell you it stays like this:
a mother who loves her boy whose hands

make dirty what was once clean.