Progeny

I had an aloe
that outgrew its pot.
One plump, spiky limb dove over the edge
like a green cuttlefish
searching for the ocean floor.
Another curved gracefully around the metal plant stand
and nosed the window.
I cut them off and rooted them
and three weeks later they had pots of their own.

They grew vigorously, and by the next year
needed cutting.
The mother plant, too, wanted trimming
so I brought out the rooting vase again
and bought more pots.
This went on, as you can imagine, for some time
and eventually I had a roomful of aloes.
I tried to give some away but no one had space enough
or light enough to care for them.
I made room under another window
and built shelves.

The mother kept reaching out her hands,
fanlike, dappled,
for me to take
and in time my apartment was full of them
front to back and side to side.
I stopped inviting people over because
there was no place left to sit.
I punched a hole in the roof to get more light
stayed home more and sang to them.
My friends said I was crazy

But one night there was a fire in the neighborhood
and the whole street went up.
People poured out of their houses in a panic
with all they could carry
and the fire trucks painted the town red.

In my garret, the aloes sapped the fire where it licked at the window panes
oozed balm into the old wood siding
squeezed wetly at upstart sparks
and damped the fire as fast as it spread.
When morning came
no one could understand why number 51, of the whole street,
was untouched.

In my living room
along the kitchen linoleum
and into the bedroom and bathroom
limp, green tubes lay in profusion
lined the window casements
carpeted the back stairs
and mulched the lawn.
Pots stand empty, soil disturbed,
as a pillow with the imprint of a head
recently risen.
People said I was crazy
but I know what goes around comes around
and the aloe will be back.

Oh, yes. She’ll be back.