1 dear Martin it's almost April again / Wasn't that you I saw in the garden
2 Passing the roses still trapped in their jackets / Winter-stripped to thorns
3 & the robins come back Invisible / but their voices clear by the old cedars
4 & not yet the chick-chick of the blackbirds / but a little girl's dark jacket's
shoulders bright red

5 In that scrappy garden by the ramshackle back lots / on Hudson
Where my grandmother fled the famine
6 Long after Irish John & Akan Caesar / hanged side by side for conspiracy
7 near the Collect Pond & left to rot / for example But in time to see
8 a black sailor murdered by Irishmen at the end / of Leroy Street Where I live

9 Wasn't that you Overlooking the filth / for the grace of my beloved island
10 Grace like that girl's Who knows your name / Do they still sing My country 'tis of thee
11 Land where my children died but that's not / how it's supposed to go is it
12 Did you see her Cheeks flushed Wolfing something sweet / after school
Making new paths in the garden

13 Kicking the two big black rocks by the roses / Saying something I
couldn't understand at first
14 until I heard the dull plastic echo / Look They're fake she said Look