and place it in a plastic bag on the window sill
to sprout a new one. Hydroponic tomatoes
don't taste as good as the ones on a vine.
It's a completely controlled environment
that has nothing to do with authenticity.
He made me a promise at our shotgun wedding.
He would take my thumbs if I ever slept
with another man. If you're on the train
to Cleveland, it's okay to get off at a whistle stop
but if you don't have a ticket, you have to say so.
Just say what you mean. I couldn't say I didn't love him.
In the little flash of a threat when you know you're going
to get hurt, you have to live up to it one way or another.
It's about listening, but the ear is one of the weakest
muscles in the body. Ten years after the promise
I slit my hand open on a bottle of wine over steak
with a man I thought I could love. The female cuckoo bird
does not settle down with a mate. Now we make her
come out of a clock. I sound like a local
when I give directions. I'm getting the hang of it.
If you have no ticket, say it. It's about knowing
where you want to put the stone in the wall.
You might need to cut that up for me,
since I have no thumbs. When he met the next man
I could love, he mentioned the promise.
It's difficult to go back to the land of the paved road.
Once the thumb-sprouts root, plant them.
When they sex themselves, you have to split them
so they don't contaminate each other.
[Meredith Hasemann, 'Thumbs', from The Southampton Review VIII no. 2 (Summer 2014)]
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