Dorothea’s Garden

Plants need a positive tone to grow, so we agree to laugh at misfortune. It’s you and me and us in the garden—we water the earth with tavern daughters’ tears. They take everything, you say with a giggle. I’m counting what’s left to give. I touch your shoulder, touch your lips. Sometimes I’m happiest when I’m ignored. You and I will never kiss without an audience. 

We are geese girls in the garden, running fast enough to numb the nipping at our ankles. We laugh, tend to our bruises, tend to each other. There are safe ways to touch, and then there are the ways they touch us. Conrad reaches for your hair again, so you tie it up tight with a smile. No wind will blow him away; we gain our own ground, unwittingly lead and wait to be followed.

At night we ration our whispers. One wish for me, one caress for you. We sing lullabies, rock our plants to sleep. The bestworst thing to do is remind them of their mothers, so we clean their roots and bathe their leaves. Our hands are left bloody, our skin riddled with thorns. We stain each other senseless as our bodies intertwine. Never anything left to sing to each other, we lend our voices to softer tasks. We learn to dread the morning, never just a kiss that wakes us up.

In our sleep they feed us fruit, a cure for the apple in our throats. You say I always know who I am with them. It’s a gift they give, telling us who we are. Still, we exchange the pride we lost, laughing out what we think we are owed. Girls without geese, girls who emerge unscathed and unclothed from a barrel full of nails. We are the inverse Everymen, and we revel in our namelessness. Death to the Everyman! you cheer and laugh. Death to us!

Phoebe Houser (she/her) is currently an English major from PA. Her chapbook of short fiction, Overgrowth, is available from Sunset Press.

A Song for Phoebe