First Draft / Working Title: Momentary Envy

Faith has nothing to do with it. These are facts.

One is to hack into the branches of a perfectly good looking plant.

Cut. Sever. Divide suddenly and forcibly. Put an end to break off. Punctuate. Puncture. Punk. Drunk. Drown. Smother. Bury.

The roots of a plant are buried. I,

not knowing, imagine that that is where the life is. Where the water seeps in. Where the unseen — no, insects see: see roots, see each other, see what is buried. What is buried is not necessarily unseen. What is buried? What is. What?

Ordinary polluted water from the Fill In Your Location sky rains down and is enough.

Sometimes I hate plants even as their lushness surprises and gifts me. Theirs is not resilience. It’s natural that they survive blows and lops and droughts and floods. (That’s your thesis put it at the top.) No.

I get to choose the order of my words.

Whatever resurrects rose bushes and leaves lovers and cats dead, whatever the fuck that is, it allows us limited choices (until it doesn’t). It allows those of us who can speak and type to choose the order of our words. It allows us to believe there is order. Order. Order in the world.

Order is feigned by the rhythm of spring following winter, by the budding red growth where last week there was none, by the unclogged veins running through the center of every leaf.

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