Mr Ashberry, revised

Yes, Mr Ashbery, Asters Bloom One Way or the Other

However, they don't always bloom in this yard,
no matter the time I take, the perfect blend of manure
and fertilizer, the dead-heading and the watering.

Interestingly enough, they tend to do better untended.
Which amuses me somewhat but frustrates me more.
Am I not needed? Are these hands--daring to go ungloved

into the black earth, exposing themselves to shards
of old clay, brick, and glass--not enough? I am not squeamish
and don't mind touching the underbelly nor the topside

of an earthworm, but it's the forgetting them there in the hot
sun that gets to me. I--slaving for hours to perfect my aster
garden--only think of them when it's time to put the shovel

and hoe away for the day and I discover what I think is an old
rubber band there next to my beaten-up New Balance. Being
the child I still am with the need to touch things that sometimes

hurt me, I lift a shriveled body up to eye-level and think of the loss,
eyes darting back down to the cool soft ground to search for more
casualties. Mr. Ashbery, I think I just realized why the asters thrive

without worm-killer me--me who can't even let a worm go honorably
to its death. Kindness has its place and sympathy cannot always hold
its hand in understanding even as it holds the fragments of loss.