Steve Abbott
Transplant
It’s warmer where she’s come from.
Here, autumn’s leaves describe
a temporary loss, something
replaceable in the next cycle of sun.
Unlike the even-toned story she told
of men in street clothes forcing the door,
beating her father into a dark sedan.
My friend spades a neat circle around
the sprout, deep cuts clear of root ball
and its tortured push through Ohio clay.
She’s already dug a new hole, bowl
extra-wide to keep the transplant from
drowning in a place like the impermeable
cup it came from. She works without gloves.
Dirt inks her fingernails. A worm drops
from her hands like a forgotten scar
into a patch of earth scabbed with graves.
The postman arrives, notes the change
in weather on his way to the mailbox,
drops a bundle of letters with unfamiliar
stamps whispering through the slot.
Nothing survives dangling in air,
unrooted, she says. Her fingers pack
new soil with peat, press the plant
among what already thrives. She says,
Everything needs a place to stand.