Had she known what her body meant, she would have known to walk away.
She pinched the spike between her forefinger and thumb and pulled hard.
Sometimes, the entire pot would lift off the ledge before the thorn gave.
Then – the tear, the clang of the metal, spattering of dust.
The flesh would secrete a moisture. Barely. It would appear ample, nonetheless.
She was told all her life that this was how the flowers were brought. She did not believe it.
But what else was there to do? Would she have known, she could walk away.
The yellow flowering mammillaria doesn’t exist – yet she could smell the stickiness
in what lay pressed between the pages of the 2002 Diary. Her body would lie there too.
Meaning, she had not meant to know. For, knowing would take the walk away.
Rituja Patil is a queer poet from Mumbai, India. Her poetry has been published in Violet, Indigo, Blue, Etc., the licktey split and LiveWire. She tries to write poems that feel like a longing gaze at the ocean at night—sometimes it’s quiet, sometimes stormy. She’s also a law student on the side with research interests in intersections of personal liberty, bodily autonomy, and health care.