Wildflower

I watch television shows where women yell at other women. I load wash and send emails about degeneration. My daughter busts through: Mommy, watch this bunny video. I dip into anxious sleep until it is time to make coffee. Another black man shot in the street. I load the dishwasher and send texts about the media cycle—send group texts about cycles. Once I’ve wiped clean every surface I retrace lines, stretch tendril vines out over neighbors’ lawns, cracking brick walls, dipping roots down cisterns in frenzied flight from sunlight. Unknowable space will fill with life’s swell until I am stripped unsure how to draw breath— how to fill, to release, mend my crack to fissure. I will call all my pieces back— crease their bright blue into a book as a pressed wildflower and drive to the store for milk.