Disease of the Newborn

It was written like this in all the books I picked up, peaceful looking words with a hundred rows of hidden teeth. Maybe the teeth were relevant, maybe they weren’t, but they were there all the same. I could peel back the gold leafing on the covers like gums, marveling at the baby roots waving back.

This is a friendly reminder about crushing lavender between your fingers—the way it seeps into the nostrils and takes its residence there, calmly cradled in an off-kilter armchair. Today, I am humble, I thought as I removed all the flower clippings from the garbage.

The Anthology of the Human can be divided into check-mark boxes, things like: hot tea at noon, bird droppings on the car, waiting up all night for no one in particular. And we know these things are coming; we let them happen to us.

Try to think of love as guerrilla warfare, and let it bring your town out of complacency. Let the windchimes wriggle their naked limbs in conjunction, not comparison, with the violinist in the park. Let yourself sit next to yourself with no agenda except watching the canoe make peace with the water.