Touch me, says the tree. Be my companion.

He imagines: wet woodflesh, expansion sap brings to cells. Rings attest to other rings around other bodies.

I know nothing of plants, says the boy. He’s kept only one, an aloe named Ernest, as in Hemingway, whose name proved prophetic.

I am sunfueled, says the tree. You need not sustain me. She sees Ernest in his eyes, brown and crinkled, and does not mind. Her constancy is no question. Her testament: branches supple with parabolic ease, seed pods fuzzed with dendrites as though flying skyward; static velocity.

The bark stays in the memory of his hands, deeper than his fingerprints, more indelible.

Bio: Jess Dimond