Tomato Seedlings
When I loosen the tomato plants, each
from the other, their roots are spider silk,
the hair of tiny Gods. My hands
are clumsy strangers learning each year
how to touch the world, trying not to
squeeze too hard, to pinch a stem
or lop a curled leaf. They lie
side by side, exude a pungent spirit. As I
tuck them into dirt, I breathe in childhood,
first love, secluded gardens— so much of this good life
floating through air at my fingertips.
Nancy Pulley’s poems have appeared in The Tipton Poetry Journal, the Indiannual, The Flying Island, Arts Indiana Literary Supplement, Passages North, Plainsong, The Sycamore Review, and the Humpback Barn Festival collection. In 1992 she won the Indiana Writer’s Center Poetry Chapbook contest, resulting in the publication of a chapbook, Tremolo of Light.