This week has shaved me to the bone. My period is two weeks late. Two weeks! I feel off, to say the least. Manic, even. In the meantime, amidst my office and pub tasks, I start five books and even Latin lessons on Duolingo. Stitch and bitch with other like-minded witches on Wednesday. Restlessly thumb through books, seeking my fortune. Sometimes I rescue plants at the supermarket because they look homeless, dressing shelves and windowsills into a forest to conceal my bare-boned self. By the end of the day, I pass out during savasana.

//

Anna gave me the keys to her studio, to use while she recovers from an operation. Among her tools and pigments, hanging baskets and research photos, books with titles like The Virtuous Weed and Plant Magic, I sit here in the hour before work, in front of a sash window lined with St. Brigid’s crosses and queer optical instruments. If not here, where?

Accompanied by her lingering perfume, I weave more skins to keep me from being worn down to nothing. Weave skins from green leaves and words from other languages, stitched together with embroidery floss. I’m like one of those Nick Cave soundsuits, for dancing in, or a shaggy Eastern European costume, for summoning woodland gods.

What am I, dreaming wide-awake and suppliant, inviting here?

<<