Looking after leeks
We are searching for him, a man who can't be seen
through the moulding glass of any greenhouse.
We imagine him happiest shooing smut and thrips away.
Truth be told, he is a man who gets easier as the weather cools.
He must take sandwiches, always, but that is all; his body
best lean with tender fingers for the delicate leeks.
The growth is slow and useful. We wait for his perfect skies
after small travesty—an early frost, an unpredicted cold snap, showers
to keep the ground close—and yet have never caught a sight.
Most nights he watches sun-shy leeks grow by the dimming glow
of his car battery. Collared and watered in, he is sitting somewhere
until the dawn chorus lullaby drowns out the rustling growth.
It is the same sky, the same chorus, and the leeks we eat are blanched
like his, and yet; and yet. We have not seen him and do not know his name.
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