Kim Goldberg

GREEN THUMB

Did you hear about the woman who was lonely but did not know it and so, being an amateur horticulturalist, grew a WE in her garden? (Without realizing of course—for once the intellect twigs to the doings of core intelligence, it’s game over for the road that cannot be known, the thought that cannot be thought, etc.) The freshly turned soil around her WE quickly filled with weeds (as freshly turned soil is prone to do). And the woman just as quickly hauled away a barrowful of EDS. She found she had to do this daily but took pleasure in tending her WE (which she still did not recognize as such, although she had begun to wonder if she should cut back on the manure tea). One night, while the woman slept, the WE went. The next morning (an exceptionally brilliant morning) the woman walked out to her garden and saw what had happened. She brought her clippers, then her loppers, and finally a hacksaw. But it was no use. The NT could not be removed. The woman brooded over the loss of her WE until mid-day when she discovered that a flat of scarlet dahlias worked much better in that spot.

—from Rattle #38, Winter 2012
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