Negligence

The tomato vine is a brittle brown wire

twisted around a stake that has started to rot.

I meant to be better, to feed the green fire,

but I left it to bake in this plastic-walled pot.

The dirt is like ash, gray and bone-dry,

rejecting the water I poured from a cup.

It’s a graveyard of things I let wither and die

because I was too tired to even look up.

I snapped a dead stem between finger and thumb,

it crumbled like charcoal, silent and light.

I stand on the patio, hollow and numb,

watching the weeds win the rest of the fight.