I'm here today, and

a strawberry didn't ripen to red, but one pinked up, finally, the first, and

the jalapeños are thick with pith and seeds, the darkest green I've seen in nature, and twining their stems from the mother trunk, woody at the base and strong enough for the delicate beginnings, cream-white as lace, to bring their centers to bear or yield to the breeze, a light touch from an impatient finger, down whence they sprung, and

the mint that survived the freeze, that announced itself green from a pile of dead and dying, from a fat patch of waste, has doubled itself again overnight and is growing new limbs up from the soil that snake from the pot and into adjacent ones, and

to touch a marigold is to smell like a marigold until my hands are washed and sometimes after, and

you can't let the basil go to seed, but don't ask me why when the rounded leaves start to grow in pointy you have to pinch them like a swollen tick, because the pointy leaves make way for the flowering, and the flowers turn to seed, and the basil can't go to seed because once it does the plant just stops and can't ever go back—there's no going back—but

don't ask me why.

i found my dog's dew claw under my pillow like a lost baby tooth; beneath the claw is a raw, pink nub, a little clit, that glistens slick until it starts to gather dust, it forms a crust, and eventually the dog loses interest, takes off the cone of shame that kept her from tasting the metallic sweetness, velvet pain, of her domesticated body.