The Accidental Gardener
by Madeline Stevens
He slit me from navel to neck.
I had to hold my insides in,
an obscene, bloody nakedness
ghastly
to remember now,
as my fingers trace smooth, ventral skin.
I gathered up my guts,
stitched myself halfway whole again,
filled the garden of my heart with earth.
A wasteland, I thought, where nothing grows.
Something in your touch brought the weather,
the scorching days relaxed into rainfall,
gentle, cleansing, a renewal.
And something stirred,
something rooted,
something like love
came to life between us,
its branches, its leaves, its blossoms
almost familiar.
Tender, a green thing, it grows.
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