It's Still Life

The Old Woman and Aleph in the Garden

My mother’s name is Aleph—
a swallowed alphabet,
the dirt’s own first vowel.

The robin cocks its head.
“Explain the worm, then.”

The old woman with no cat
sinks her spade again—
bites clay, bites air, bites centuries.
“Aleph,” she mutters,
“is the shape a worm writes—
a letter no god can read.”

The robin flinches; even robins know:
some names are too heavy for wings.

Under the next spadeful:
a white root, or bone,
or nothing.

The garden folds around her.
Every handful:
soil, worm, robin, memory.
Every breath:
a beginning again.

Aleph is not a letter.
It is the silent hinge of the world.

The robin says,
“Aleph is the question
that doesn’t need your answer.”

“Too fucking true,” says the old woman—
and digs deeper.

Because of course:
you dig,
and dig,
and it is always just below the last thing you found
and recognised.