India Hobson via The Garden Edit
It all comes back. Even the dampness underfoot; even that brings it back. I was in Kew Gardens when I first realised how much everything yearns to grow. I was just twelve, quietly sure-footed in the world. Afterwards we went back to the apartment, and it was raining lightly, and I stood in the bathtub with the white curtain pulled around, ran a shower, and shaved my armpits for the first time.
KATIE PETERSON
Never a gardener, she
became interested
in gardening. The dying
are known to
make estranging
decisions
about the disclosure
of information.
Everyone knew
where the report
cards were, but the marriage
license proved difficult
to locate. Tomato
and potato vines crawled
up different stakes
in the same barrel,
and she tended
equally the decorative
plants, the lobelia and alyssum
fringing and clinging to
the edges, in the sun
under a visor
fuzzy with the terry
cloth of enough
vacations to forget
the number, to wear
the lettering
into half-glyphs insinuating
but not stating
the location of past
happiness. She knelt,
hinged
at the waist,
thrust
her hands in dirt
feeling for roots
even when
they no longer
needed
tending, even
when fruit and flowers
hung thick falling.