it was night and the ground was steamy

Up from the parkway the whiff 
of a diesel, a nearby landfill. 
The yowl of a siren in traffic. 
I was down on my knees, digging out mats 
of quack grass, pulling up nutsedge, stars 
of thistle, pierced with the thin shards of glass. 
The sweat on my sleeve pointed to moonlight.
To shovel. A handful of seeds from the hat of some magic 
like Jack’s. Green, stringless pods on the front of a Burpee 
pack, lined up like green cigars. They had stalked my dreams, 
planted themselves in the plot of a city. In its cache 
of hornfels and shale, its broken bits of beer bottles. 
It was night and the ground was steamy.
The sweat on my sleeve whispered, beans.