Breathing like an owl in a still-drying pink forest, the edges of trunks the right colour but the centre too wet and red. I’m picturing clay glaze and a misfire. This isn’t a good metaphor. I just want to imagine a garden made from natural elements, accepted as is and into a shrine, the plants lacerating our bare feet. Something about an Asphodelic promenade. And I don’t know how much of us there are. Lavender, carnation, daisy. Tulip, which isn’t so readily accepted, is only part of my animal imagining, my creature faith. Our little cuts scented like roses, to represent love entering where there is pain. To allude to the quote “[T]he flower that gives its fragrance even to the hand that crushes it,” typically attributed to the son-in-law of The Prophet, Hazrat Ali, though such attribution is contentious. This might be a cruising spot. I shelter under the dirt. There’s more to say but I don’t know if I can say it so I’ll breathe it into the earth instead. When the sun rises through the trees, thin shards of light over my wet back, mine and all of our breath will be visible and discoloured, the same gasp of blood mist from an open wound.