Marilyn McCabe
FARM HAND
Stuck in the tooth
of boots, half damp,
and coating jacket cuffs,
gloves, has found its way down
to the half moons of my fingernails:
dirt, and I'm a new world:
planet of tickling mycelium,
fungal hyphae, some bacterium
is getting to know me,
nematodes may nose
my cuticles, and from a thumb
some springtail may launch.
I dare not wash
but lay me down back
to the garden where I can be
of use again, world on world.