Russell Justwrite 9--finals justwrite

A bunch of tools in my belt, at least one of them a spade, or a spoon I use to rip apart the roots of two sweetpea stems sprouting too close. I tear them apart gently, the way I cut through seams or pluck daisy heads or snap the damp necks of butter beans, summer beans, smelling like rain and bitter soil packed down by bare palms and bare soles. My father edges his garden with mums because it keeps pests away, but I think it just fences them in, traps them in the middle where I find tomato leaves chewed to lace, squash blossoms casting shadows like the old screen door. I still hear it slamming at night, know how the wind sounds like visitors, rushed, or angry maybe, letting go of a spring-hinged screen door and only thinking about the eyes closed above the kitchen the next morning, when a woman slips down the stairs while the lights are still out, wonders through the pain why her foot lost its way and decides that adults don't cry. I remind myself of this when I press my dry cheeks against my window screen and focus on the darkness outside, wonder if this taste in my throat is what the bugs feel when they find a row of mums, and I swallow, searching for the bitterness of summer beans, damp summer air, finding nothing until I reach the ocean, tear my spade from my belt and start piercing roots with its blade, not wondering how I've grown so close.