i finally gave you that tour
of my backyard last night
but it was nothing like
the one i’d been promising
there were no fruiting trees
no lush green canopies
no unnamed plants with
unknown culinary uses

we walked across the hillside
as it was twenty years ago
when the adjacent plots
only housed blooming cacti
and wild grass gone to seed
i’d forgotten the way the land
sloped under foot and gaze
before the fences were raised