no hands (your green hand)

she consulted the list of things that can fill her up and none of them are at hand. there is little greenery to be tended to by a knowing hand ready to spritz malathion and other heady organosphosphates. the space between her ribs, vacant: enough to slide in a few fingers to have someone crack her open and back to life. her heart hangs low, putrescent, absorbing obstinance. vines slither listlessly and graze the spaces between her toes, encountering little resistance.

three days later she is prone in an a clearing. all she wants is the short grass to grow tall through her bones, to become thicket with constancy. instead of her ribs, her pupils unfurl themselves into deep water and receive the fruits of the sky. the fibers begin revealing themselves as rosy, lavender, and violet threads that hang as rope ladders. instead of being absorbed into the earth, she senses the needles tatting these threads into the gaps of her skeleton.

eleven days later: the brown tangle of weeds have parted from her sternum. her costal cartilage has become supple, yet flecked with the inky remains of the tannins from the stems that bound her. her rib-gaps widen, enough for a hand's-breadth, she estimates. a bouquet on the horizon finds its vase, full of cool water to be absorbed by each thirsty stele. obscured by the growth, the gardener's hands find the first buds along the cartilage of her sternum. in a flash, the gardener's secateurs violently loose the buds to ensure greater florescence.

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note: work in progress
lastmod: 2025-09-28

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