My mother splits the quilt
of dark earth, the un-dug
clumps of garlic clusters
like dove skulls. She pulls
apart the bulbs and crushes
a clove underneath the flat
side of a knife. The skin
peels off, an exoskeleton
of white shell. A piano
note decays the moment
human weight plays it, all life
in perpetual rot. I lay in bed––
cough staccato, fever crescendo, 
voice quarter rest. My molars 
crunch the cloves she feeds me,
her fingers finding my mouth 
and brushing my lips,
scaling a major key.