“… i hesitated. hand over the trash can. because that chapstick had touched

my lips. and my lips had touched yours.

though, it was more than just touch. my lips had sought yours: desperate and ripe,

full of want. they had caressed the skin juncture between the valleys

of your clavicle and the tip of your shoulder. my lips had carved

through the shell of your ear. they had brined with the ocean…”

My aunt is teaching me that when you’re planting a garden with perennials, the key is to know when to cut them back to encourage growth for the next year.

There are specific points where you cut them – with knockoff roses, for example, there are bulbs that you cut in front of, to entice the new cherry brown leaf growth to pull in the bright carnation-red flowers. Those roses came with the home. They sit in the backyard, watching the estuary and the cattails. The tide coming in and out, in and out. You and I both agreed on our first date that roses are incredibly overrated…