Track Insight / Lyrics
I tell the *Ficus* on the sill a thing I read
about mycelium passing sugar to the struggling neighbor
and I snort, short, a dry pop behind the teeth
she angles one leaf. She's heard this. She's patient.
So I said to the *Quercus* cutting in its jar—
"Your acorns would take four hundred years to ask forgiveness"
and I cackled at the tile, at my own reflection
gripping a trowel like a small, embarrassing sword.
Hah. Just the tile. Just the *Petunia* in her saucer
going on with chlorophyll, indifferent, green
and me doubled up, the laugh striking the linoleum
bouncing back fainter, like a word no one repeats.
I watered the *Datura* after, slow, the way you'd
apologize to a friend whose pun you missed
the drip-tip hissing its small cold sentence into the root
and I whispered, "Sorry. I'm not the whole audience tonight."
Hah. Just the tile. Just the *Petunia* in her saucer
going on with chlorophyll, indifferent, green
and me doubled up, the laugh striking the linoleum
bouncing back fainter, like a word no one repeats.
The *Ficus* photosynthesizes. The kitchen holds its shape.
I set the trowel down, rinse the soil from the knuckles,
hum two bars of that honky-tonk nothing to no one—
and the *Quercus* in its jar is still just… waiting.
