“I Am Gardener,” by Daniel Holland

Hey Man, this weird thing happened yesterday down at the vegetable stand I own. When they fertilized the field in back of my stand, the field flooded. The water rushed into a hole in back of the cabbage bin. Man, was I bummed out when I saw that! I didn’t want to throw away the…

Perched on the end of faded green roughened seesaw. Roughened by sand poured over the board. I went up and down, then suddenly stopped. Stopped in midflight by a girl child turned woman. She said, “Here I am!” with her eyes. She made the sand feel solid.

When the blister wants to come out, there’s no stopping it. Walk too much–the blister can come out. Use your hands a lot–the blister will come out. “Me, Blister, I will travel.” Sit down a lot and see what happens. The end.

Freckles, why did you have sex with the poodle next door? Poor puppies have beagle faces and poodle hairstyles. After the love affair of the poodle, your girlfriend was that St. Bernard. When the St. Bernard jumped on the gray, roughened, falling-down fence, it shook like an earthquake. Freckles came running on all four paws…

I always lie when I tell snow stories. You say you walked to school as a kid in two feet of snow. I say I walked in three feet of snow. Not only that–it was 20 degrees below zero. There were no bathrooms in sight, a lot of people around. I was pee-shy.

LEARNING TO CRAWL — When I was little, I liked crawling and was able to crawl really fast. All the big people towering over me kept trying to get me to walk and stand up. The only time I would stand up is when no one was around. Crawling was my favorite way to get…