After class you would drag me with protest to the empty cherry tree to tend the ground there once a week respectfully you would speak to me of the carrot-headed sister just me with my feet as solemnly you would stroke the ground to tuck her into her silten sheets some six feet deep with the lights that passed before you could afford to mark the ground beneath the cherry tree i learned to wait in your sheets and seats and dig my teeth deep into my knees to dam the creeks above these ruddy cheeks that betray me now you signed your name across the space beside her and tend the ground where you will lay apart from everything but your carrot-headed daughter beneath that cherry tree eternally