Affixed

each saguaro pillar
in this bare-but-full,
sparse-but-ample
hill-side forest is
a bone in a body
i didn’t know i had.
whispers surround me, their
austere guardian presence
like tribal elders confessing
crested wisdom—the tangled gift
& barbed curse of knowledge, &
it’s the same as when
the wind gushes her secrets
to the border collie whose
ears perk in response
leaping up to form
scalable furry peaks
that tweak & prick.
i can’t make heads or tails
of the contents of
these reveals, but,
i stand with my spine | | straight | |
mirroring my cacti gurus
& their skyscraper torsos
gazing into this topsy-
-turvy horizon sea &
becoming a rooted
fixture myself, while
i graze off the desert gods,
confident of one thing—
all that really matters
is me being here,
l i s t e n i n g ~

Abbie Doll is a writer residing in Columbus, OH, with an MFA from Lindenwood University and is a Fiction Editor at Identity Theory. Her work has been featured in Door Is a Jar Magazine, 3:AM Magazine, and Pinch Journal Online, among others. Connect on socials @AbbieDollWrites.