Wearing white cotton underpants,

I knelt beside the blue hydrangea,

my blond hair tangled with dirt.

I shook the green snake dripping water from its snout

and scooped up the wet earth with a pink plastic teacup,

then clawed the mud ball from the cup.

My clapping hands gave the slop a lopsided shape

which I flattened—splat!—with a cereal spoon.

Then I staked the spoon in the root of the hydrangea,

cramming that spoon into the ground, down,

down in the ground.

What are you doing, Nancy Mae?

my mother called from the kitchen door.

I’m sending the spoon to hell, I sang.

I’m sending the spoon to hell.