Nancy Holt Wright
HOW SHE CAN TELL SHE IS HAPPY
If you are going to lose an organ, he says to her,
the gallbladder is the one.
She kneels beside him in the garden,
yanking up bind weed that has begun to twist
around the spinach and lettuce.
Lots of stuff in there we don’t need, he reminds her
while he thins the basil plants.
I bet there are a few bones we could live without.
She thinks about getting along without her clavicle,
her femur or skull,
and she fingers the holes in the lettuce
left by beetles and slugs.
He focuses on the dirt, the basil;
he thinks they are having
a hypothetical conversation.
He wants to know
if she’d rather be blind or deaf,
lose her sense of touch or smell,
amputate an arm or leg.
We don’t need everything, he says.
She picks a leaf of damaged spinach
and flattens it against her thigh.
Her flesh appears among
the insect holes, the gnawed
edges framing her skin.
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