In the beginning, yes, a garden. As lush as you’re imagining. Even the grass grows mid-oak. In the beginning, the grass and trees and birds are already tired of their assigned names. They consider rebellion, the green blades think of rounding, feathered wings think of swimming a backstroke, but a person assigned “woman” beats them to it by eating something edible. In the beginning, in a hospital in north Mississippi, a mother holds her new baby, calls this day her happiest. The baby is you. The mother is surprised you’re here with only a heart murmur. She says having lived through her bloodstream’s birth control and, later, tequila, you must be a fighter. In the beginning, there’s much holding. There’s not enough holding. In the beginning, a father says you’re beautiful. In the beginning, you’re three years old walking down the beach crying too loud because a wave knocked you down and he slaps you on the leg. Hard. You stop crying in your purple one piece. Here, a beginning: a small house on a wooded hill where dogwoods bloom when they’re supposed to. If you’re wondering what the cardinals would do for you besides moving bright color around, you’re twelve. If you’re wondering what parts of life are survivable, you’re fourteen. There, the beginning, a boy. He tells you, only you, that he’s a boy. You understand. You’re not certain makeup and heat-coiled hair makes you a girl. He might not understand. The boy can do much more for you than the birds, the hill, everyone else on the hill. In the beginning, he looks at you the way someone must have when you were born. Here, in the garden, a ripeness both of you can eat, but somehow shouldn’t. A fruit bored with sinless afternoons and aching for teeth.
