A man held my arm
as if it were his son’s –
slid a needle in without pain,
pushed isotopes through
my veins to light up my lungs.
Warned me of how
the magnetic finger and
thumb of the machine
would squeeze my atoms
until I felt the warmth
of information leaking
from my body.
After seeing
the light places
on the image
where light spaces
should be,
I went home, sank a spade
to bury a handful of sprouting
rhizomes I stole
from the hospital garden.
Wild potential –
a candle of spadix,
a green flame of spathe –
better than any present.
While opening the hole
I made a mistake – girdled sassafras
roots. Now those trees
will never gossip with siblings or
feed each other in their thin grove
of growth.
I wept as the sweet water spilled
into the stomach of the earth,
sugaring the soil and feeding
the uninvited.
Poem by Andrew McCall
Andrew McCall teaches about plants and insects in central Ohio. He enjoys fishing, dancing, and playing the fiddle. Some of his work has been published in Canary, ucity review, and Turk’s Head Review.