First Argument

An ache like a seed caught in teeth, acrid after- taste of unripe fruit;

astonishment. That is not what I meant. Sudden drop of a gaze, new

heaviness. Where are you going? Strange entrapment within skin, like the tree-

gum that had to be cut from Eve’s hair. I just didn’t hear you.

The twitch of a brow. She remembers the bitterness of a beetle crunched

accidentally, hidden in the spinach; she remembers the first rasp of ivy rash on the wrist.

Look at me when I’m talking. Heart pounding in her ears. A shoulder

shrugs away from a hand. Skin is not just for pleasure; it can chafe. She is learning

what a weed is, and what it does.