Birth of a Naturalist

Among moist bromeliads I was bored, and the soft-fingered ferns annoyed me like an aunt touching my face and trailing her fingers down my cheek. What was I, a possession?       In the gift shop where I desired nothing, a stranger confused boredom for balked desire, and bought me a small pot with a blunt nub, like a toad’s brown snout, jutting from dry soil. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you,” as I had been taught, and she departed, a plump whorl of black hair and red scarves. In my pocket, the pot rode my thigh like a stone and because it was a secret, my secret, I began to love it. The next day the toad’s tumescent snout, now mossy green, cracked the packed dirt. On the windowsill over my bed, a rickety stalk rose and kept rising, rising until it fell, and with the toppled orchid in my arms, I slept past dawn, when Mother’s laughter woke me, and I was shamed. Beyond our lawn and property, again in secret, I tucked its roots in spongy humus, where,       spindly and limp-leaved, it dwindled. Now when I stretch out over its absence, the coarse vigor of its killers cushions me, and I imagine the lost orchid animating bracken, buttercup, bramble, and broadleaf dock. Morning glory over-climbs it all, green on green, blaring its beautiful and murderous alabaster trumpets, while twizzling vines unfurl, spin in the sun, and, clutching, caress my face.