Annelida

My husband is saving the worms again.
All night, heavy rain, now the driveway crawls 
with worms, afraid of drowning, but so dumb 
they will broil to death in the sun, except 
for my husband who picks them up,
one by one, places them on the still-wet grass,
then drives to work without even washing
his hands. I imagine him in his office sniffing 
his fingers for the earthy scent of worms,

and I remember being 6 and loving 
worms, collecting them in a worm bin, 
a five-pound pickle bucket, so I understand 
his affection. I filled my bin with a bedding 
of peat moss and soil, soaked and squeezed it
by hand, punctured breathing holes in the lid.

I took a trowel into the garden and dug 
for worms. Pink, gray, and reddish-brown.
The long fat ones I loved best, the way they shrunk 
and stretched when touched. The way they reared
their heads. I fed them chicken mash, decayed leaves, 
and kitchen waste. I wanted my worms to live. 

No eyes, no ears, no backbone, no legs.
Each a tube inside a tube, like a knife in a sheath.
Hermaphroditic. Conjoined by a slime tube. 
My worms multiplied. I imagined the five pairs 
of hearts, their blood, red like mine. 

This was nothing to do with sex—I was 6!
This was tactile, olfactory. I wanted the feel, the smell
of worms in my hands, on my skin.
Sometimes I lay down on the floor and let worms
crawl across my belly. Once I put a worm in my mouth.

When I was 7, I upended the bin and freed 
the worms, imagined them sliding 
through the earth, finding their way home.
Some days I can hardly wait until my husband 
comes home, and puts his hands on my skin.

                 

                        —Diane Lockward

                          (from What Feeds Us, Wind Publications, 2006)