Backyard

In your aunt’s backyard: squash of no compare. Lettuce sprout- ing full-frond from neat hillocks, trees with arms weighed down by pomegranates. The chickens escaped from their hutch a long time ago. You had to hunt for the eggs, inside a forgotten tire, beneath the sheltering leaf of a plantain, in the shadows at the back corner of the house beside the porch. Get them! Get them! your aunt screamed. You found one once hatching, the beak of the chick questing forth from the trembling surface of shell. Little man, you said, what are you doing? Go back inside, for the sake of your life! When your aunt cracked it into a pan the yolk was a full- bodied yellow. Isn’t it good? she said. Yes, you said very carefully. It’s delicious.