after “Reupholstering a Chair” by Jenn Givhan
This used to be the tallest living thing
in the house without legs. What happened?
You can’t remember if it was over-water
under-light, death-by-cat—just that
you read somewhere the limbs, sleek and stiff, once
damaged, would never recover. Best to amputate, make room
for the new. Your scissoring left only two fingers
poking out, a desert of husks
tiny and curled
on themselves as if flinching. You left them
by the sliding door—full afternoon sun—and you stayed
your lust, your watering can. You trusted
time would do its work. But then you touched one
and it broke. You watch the other, now
worried it too is illusion
that beneath that dry earth lies the loss
of the plant entirely, its leaves, majestic, green
as serpents rising to the ghost of a charm
that you no longer possess.