She gathered the lights from the islands and sewed them into a dress,
It fluttered in the wind, though hems were holy and hapless.
The words they spoke were like those he had written in a notebook,
they were unfamiliar but nonetheless warm,
like soil in the summertime, where roots
lay their strange arms across the land, before the shovel rends them apart.
They are small, gangly, and though it doesnât take much to rend them apart
it takes ages to get their stains from that old dress.
He figured thatâs what they get for sinking their teeth through the root,
for their disregard, their endless consumption, their hapless
and hopeless days spent piercing their veins that did nothing but rest in the soil, warm
and unassuming. They took their alien blooms and pressed them in their notebooks.
He would have preserved her like that if he couldâve, pressed her between notebook
pages. When he needed her he would rend them apart,
letting the pulpy shreds fall to the floor. She would present herself to him, warm
and unassuming. She would still be wearing that island light dress.
This thought, he knew, was ill advised, hapless,
he wanted for nothing but to stretch his arms around her, fingers interlocking like roots.
It felt like the countryside had iced over, the warm soil where the roots
resided, dead, couldâve swallowed his body whole. All heâd leave was a notebook
of niceties, of garden layouts he would never plant, of his hapless
and scrawny limbs. In no time, the Earth would rend him apart,
returning his flesh to where it had come from. But instead he would dream of the dress,
made of light from the islands. He would dream of warmth.
The sun and moon never iced over. The shovels, the stains, the icy countryside would warm,
he would greet the sunny season with a new respect for the roots.
Hung on a hanger in the cellar doorway, the old dress,
and resting on the cellar stairs, the old notebook,
would serve as a reminder but never again rend him apart.
Sprouts in the soil would finally flower, no longer helpless or hapless.
Crawling out of bed to meet the mist had been so helpless and hapless,
before the countryside had been graced by the sunâs warmth.
But now branches bore fruits so ripe that he would rend their flesh apart,
no longer tearing thanklessly into alien blooms, strange roots.
The fresh pulpy pages of a new notebook
were filled with scrawl that was thankful to the Earth and soft lines of a dress that didnât exist.
And those soft lines would fade as he stopped peering down the cellar stairs at the dress,
as he stopped brushing through the pages of the unplanned gardens in the old notebook.
His tired heart was finally ready for something new to take root.